An Early Critic of Unlimited Government

European Diary: Reykholt, April 2022

In my recent two-volume work, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers, I define conservative liberalism by four principles, private property, free trade, limited government, and respect for traditions (evolution, not revolution). These principles existed of course before four British thinkers, John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke, presented their systematic defence in seminal books. For example, arguments for private property and limited government are found in two eminent thirteenth century writers who could be called ‘proto-liberals’, the Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) and the Italian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).

A Talk at Snorri’s Place

My interpretation of Snorri as a Nordic pioneer of classical liberal and conservative thought has aroused much interest in Iceland where everybody is familiar with Snorri’s works; an integral and much-appreciated part of the Icelandic heritage, they are read and discussed in all schools: Edda, a treatise on Nordic mythology, Heimskringla, the history of Norwegian kings, and the Saga of Egil, the story of a larger-than-life Icelandic warrior-poet of the tenth century. I was therefore invited to give a talk on 19 April 2022 in Reykholt, the place where Snorri lived and wrote most of his works. This was where he was killed in 1241 on the order of King Haakon IV of Norway who was angry at him for resisting attempts to make Iceland, an independent Commonwealth since 930, a Norwegian tributary. The Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges, an admirer of ancient Icelandic literature, has written a well-known poem about Snorri’s execution.

Reykholt is about one-and-a-half hours’ drive from Reykjavik, and the site of a church, a school, a hotel, and an institution devoted to Snorri’s memory. The Icelandic name of the place would in English be ‘Smoke Forest’, because it had both a forest (holt in Icelandic), now mostly disappeared, and some hot springs which emit smoke. It also has a statue of Snorri (depicted above). In my talk I pointed out that it was nothing new to regard Snorri Sturluson as a critic of royal power. This has been argued by scholars before, for example by Professors Sigurdur Lindal, Birgit Sawyer, and Magnus Fjalldal. But what I did in my book was to place Snorri in the conservative-liberal political tradition, alongside Aquinas. They had in common the twin ideas that kings were no less than their subjects under the law, and that they could be deposed if they broke the implicit social contract, in Snorri’s case as determined by customs and conventions and in Aquinas’ case as determined by the natural law. Snorri went even further and argued in Heimskringla, in a famous speech he put into the mouth of an Icelandic farmer, Einar from Thvera, that it was best for the Icelanders to have no king but the law.

New Insights

In my talk I added several considerations to the account in my recent book of Snorri’s thought. For example, in the Book of the Icelanders, composed by Ari the Learned in the 1120s, a reference was made to the inherent conflict in Scandinavia between peaceful and thrifty farmers on the one hand and bellicose and profligate kings on the other hand. This was the ‘Icelandic exceptionalism’ which could also be seen in Snorri’s works. Again, Snorri’s tale in Heimskringla of Iceland’s four ‘protective spirits’ was a subtle intimation to King Haakon IV of Norway not to invade Iceland, as he was for a while planning to do, after skirmishes between Norwegian merchants and Icelandic farmers in the late 1210s. I told the audience that I found it most likely that Snorri had originally written the saga of Olav the Fat (995–1030) who was the first Norwegian king to try and take control of Iceland, and that he had then added sagas about the king’s predecessors and successors. I also suggested that Snorri might himself have composed some of the poems in the Saga of Egil, the first real saga of the Icelanders.

Yet another consideration applies to Snorri’s Edda. It is that the heathen gods, the aesir, were more like a community of equals than a tyranny where just one god had absolute power. The gods met and deliberated, like judges do, and did not take orders unquestioningly from their acknowledged king, Odin or Wutan. In a perhaps primitive manner this was somewhat like the kingship which Aristotle contrasted with tyranny, or the monarchy which Montesquieu contrasted with despotism.

A lively discussion followed my talk with perceptive comments by psychiatrist Ottar Gudmundsson, the author of a book in Icelandic about the personalities of Snorri and his contemporaries from a medical point of view, and the Reverend Geir Waage, former Pastor of Reykholt, an avid reader and interpreter of ancient Icelandic literature.

My forefather

It is an insignificant but amusing fact that I, like almost all Icelanders, can boast of Snorri Sturluson as a forefather. Iceland is unique in that we have reasonably accurate records of most Icelanders over the centuries, from the very settlement of the country by Norwegian vikings in 874, and a well-designed data base run by a private company, deCode Genetics. I am 22nd in line from Snorri. Note that most Icelanders do not have family names: they are just sons or daughters of their fathers. Snorri was for example the son of Sturla, as I am the son of Gissur. The lineage goes like this:

Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241)

Thordis Snorradaughter (c. 1205)

Einar Thorvaldsson (1227–c. 1286)

Unnamed girl Einarsdaughter (c. 1250)

Erik Sveinbjornsson (c. 1277–1342)

Einar Eriksson (c. 1320–1382)

Bjorn Einarsson the Pilgrim (c. 1350–1415)

Kristin Bjornsdaughter (1374–1468)

Solveig Thorleifsdaughter (c. 1415–1479)

Jon Sigmundsson the Lawman (1455–1520)

Helga Jonsdaughter (c. 1511–c. 1600)

Thord Thorlaksson (1543–1638)

Thorlak Thordson (c. 1615)

Gudmund Thorlaksson (c. 1650–c. 1687)

Thorlak Gudmundsson (c. 1682)

Steinthor Thorlaksson (1728–1813)

Bjarni Steinthorsson the Rich (1761–1841)

Kolfinna Bjarnadaughter (1785–1863)

Bjarni Snaebjornsson (1829–1894)

Asta Bjarnadaughter (1864–1952)

Holmfridur S. Jonsdaughter (1903–1967)

Asta Hannesdaughter (1926–2000)

Hannes H. Gissurarson (b. 1953)

(The Conservative, 8 December 2023.)

Threats to Digital Freedom

European Diary: Rome, December 2021

It is always a pleasure to visit Rome, the eternal city. I first came to Rome in the autumn of 1986, stayed at a hotel above the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain and used my few days in the city to the utmost, looking in awe at all the monuments, churches, palaces and ruins in what was for many centuries practically the capital of the Western world and where the headquarters of the Catholic Church are still located. At the initiative of my friend, Professor Antonio Martino, I returned in the spring of 1994, to be a Visiting Professor at LUISS, Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali. Martino was then busy campaigning for Forza Italia, the political party founded by Silvio Berlusconi and him to save Italy from a communist takeover, seemingly likely after all the established parties had collapsed as a result of revelations about widespread corruption. In the 1994 elections, Berlusconi and Martino succeeded, and Martino became Foreign Minister in Berlusconi’s government which however did not last long. Later Martino was Defence Minister for five years in subsequent Berlusconi governments. Martino was an eloquent, elegantly-dressed, polite and witty scholar and gentleman, whereas Berlusconi was exuberant, energetic, lively and cheerful, with a strong desire to be liked, a strength in a politician but perhaps a weakness in a statesman.

Arguments for Freedom of Expression

On 10–13 December 2021, I found myself in Rome yet again, at a conference on digital freedom, organised by ECR, European Conservatives and Reformists. I enjoyed the warm hospitality of Antonio Giordano, the ECR Secretary General, and Katia Bellantone, the ECR Chief of Staff. Having lived and worked in Rome for many years, they knew everything worth knowing about where to go and what to see in the city. They took me to lovely local restaurants. At the conference itself, I argued that the new social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, had gone too far in trying to censor content on their platforms. I recalled John Stuart Mill’s three exemplary arguments for freedom of thought and expression: that fallible censors might suppress sound ideas; that some ideas contained both errors and truths and that a free discussion was necessary to eliminate the errors; and that even if an idea was totally wrong, it would be worthwhile to try and refute it vigorously. I added two further arguments: that in a democracy freedom of expression was an indispensable constraint on government; and that it could also serve to vent off frustrations which otherwise might lead to violence.

Recent Unjustified Restrictions

In my talk, I agreed that the social media might adopt some restrictions on what could be expressed on their platforms, for example a ban on child pornography and on any incitement to violence. But the recent ban of President Donald Trump could hardly be justified in such a way. He had often been rude and offensive publicly, but freedom of expression was also the freedom to be rude and offensive. If the social media were strong enough to disconnect the leader of the most powerful nation in the world who had received almost 75 million votes in a recent election, how could they then treat others? Another example was the ban imposed by both Twitter and Facebook for a while on any speculation that the corona virus had escaped from a Wuhan laboratory and not been transmitted from an animal to a person. This now seemed the most plausible explanation of the pandemic which had turned the world upside down for the last two years. This was a matter of vital importance, and yet the social media did not for some time allow their users even to mention it.

Social Media as Common Carriers

I discussed the common response that Twitter and Facebook were private companies; and that therefore they could decide which rules to apply when offering their services. This was only partly plausible, I observed: they were also common carriers like phone companies, private roads, and hotels. A phone company could not refuse to connect individuals because they spoke nonsense; the owner of a private road might charge a toll for its use, but he could not prohibit women from driving on it; a hotel could not refuse to serve people of colour. Moreover, Twitter and Facebook, and for that matter also Amazon, were so dominant in their fields of activity that there they enjoyed a near monopoly. You could go somewhere else if a newspaper refused to print your submission, but where could you go in cyberspace if Twitter and Facebook jointly decided to close your accounts and if Amazon refused to carry your books?

Over the last few years all three companies had shown a left-wing bias, I added. Either the social media had to define clearly some fair, narrow and transparent terms of use or they could risk losing the legal immunity that they enjoyed in the United States by which they were not held responsible for opinions and ideas expressed on the platforms they provided. Censors were fallible, including journalists and social media managers. The choice was between censorship and freedom of expression.

(The Conservative, 8 December 2023.)

Hvað olli synjuninni?

Í greinargerð, sem ég tók saman fyrir fjármálaráðuneytið um bankahrunið 2008, reyndi ég að skýra, hvers vegna Íslendingum var þá alls staðar synjað um lausafjárfyrirgreiðslu nema í norrænu seðlabönkunum þremur. Jafnframt gengu bresk stjórnvöld hart fram gegn Íslendingum. Miklu hefði breytt, hefði seðlabankinn íslenski getað tilkynnt, að hann hefði gert gjaldeyrisskiptasamninga við bandaríska og evrópska seðlabankann, til dæmis upp á tíu milljarða Bandaríkjadala. Spákaupmenn hefðu þá varla haldið áfram að veðja á fall bankanna og lækkun krónunnar.

Skýringar mínar voru margvíslegar. Bandaríkjamenn höfðu misst áhugann á Íslandi, eftir að landið hætti að vera hernaðarlega mikilvægt í þeirra augum. Bresku stjórnmálamennirnir Gordon Brown og Alasdair Darling vildu sýna skoskum kjósendum sínum, að sjálfstæði í peningamálum væri varasamt. Evrópskir seðlabankamenn töldu íslensku bankana fjárfrekar boðflennur á evrópskum mörkuðum og ógna innstæðutryggingakerfi Evrópulanda. Raunar hefur síðan komið í ljós, að sumir þeir bankar, sem bjargað var með lausafjárfyrirgreiðslu í fjármálakreppunni 2008, voru verr staddir fjárhagslega en íslensku bankarnir og með ýmislegt á samviskunni (peningaþvætti og vaxtasvik), til dæmis RBS í Skotlandi, UBS í Svisslandi og Danske Bank.

Í grúski mínu rakst ég nýlega á enn eina hugsanlega skýringu á fjandskap evrópskra seðlabankamanna í garð Íslendinga. Á fundi Evrópuþingsins 13. janúar 2009 var þess minnst, að tíu ár voru frá upptöku evrunnar. David Corbett, leiðtogi breskra jafnaðarmanna á þinginu, sagði við það tækifæri: „Evran hefur verið stöðug eins og klettur, og má hafa til marks um það misjafnt hlutskipti Íslands og Írlands.“ Vildi evrópski seðlabankinn ef til vill sýna, hvað það gæti kostað að standa utan evrusvæðisins?

(Fróðleiksmoli í Morgunblaðinu 30. desember 2023.)

Jólasveinarnir

Hvers vegna eru íslensku jólasveinarnir þrettán svo gerólíkir jólasveininum alþjóðlega, góðlega, rauðklædda og hvítskeggjaða, sem fer með himinskautum og gefur þægum börnum gjafir? Íslensku jólasveinarnir eru hrekkjóttir og þjófóttir og koma ofan úr fjöllum, einn af öðrum, og móðir þeirra, Grýla, á það til að éta óþæg börn. Alþjóðlegi jólasveinninn er hins vegar ættaður frá heilögum Nikulási, sem var biskup í borginni Myra í Rómarríki, nú Demre í Tyrklandi. Hann var uppi á fjórðu öld eftir Krist og kunnur að gjafmildi og örlæti. Nafn hans afbakaðist í Sinterklaas í hollensku og Santa Claus á ensku (Papa Noel á portúgölsku).  

Ég leyfi mér að setja fram þá tilgátu, sem getur ekki verið frumleg, að munurinn stafi af gerð og björgum þjóðskipulagsins. Allir þeir, sem gætt hafa ungra barna, vita, hversu erfitt er að fá þau til að hlýða boðum og bönnum, svo að þau hlaupi ekki þangað, sem hættur leynast. Þá þarf ýmist að veifa framan í þau vendinum eða gulrótinni, óttanum eða voninni. Ísland er land djúpra dala, hárra fjalla, margra mánaða myrkurs og hættulegra lækja, fljóta og vatna. Allt var opið, engar girðingar sem heitið gæti. Hætt var við, að börn færu sér að voða nálægt sveitabæjum í skammdeginu. Þess vegna voru þeim sagðar sögur til að hræða þau til gætni, og þær voru af Grýlu og jólasveinunum, sem gæti hrifsað burt allt góðgætið til jólanna, hámað í sig skyr, krækt sér í bjúgu og hangikjötslæri. Þau yrðu að haga sér vel, fara ekki út fyrir túnfótinn, hlýða, svo að þau færu ekki í jólaköttinn.

Úti í Norðurálfunni mátti hins vegar beita voninni sem stýritæki í stað óttans. Þegar börnin höguðu sér vel, þá gátu þau treyst því, að jólasveinninn kæmi með gjafir handa þeim. Flest lönd Norðurálfunnar voru miklu ríkari en Ísland, þar var bjartara í jólamánuðinum og auðveldara fyrir foreldra að fylgjast með börnum sínum. En hér á Íslandi útrýmdi rafmagnið myrkrinu og flest börn komast ekki út fyrir girðingar. Þess vegna á alþjóðlegi jólasveinninn miklu betur við nú. Grýla, Leppalúði og jólasveinarnir þrettán eru fyrirbæri liðinnar tíðar. Vonin um gjafir fyrir hlýðni er áhrifameiri en óttinn við Grýlu og jólasveinina þrettán.

(Fróðleiksmoli í Morgunblaðinu 23. desember 2023.)

Gyðingahatur

Einfaldasta skilgreiningin á Gyðingahatri er, þegar lagður er allt annar mælikvarði á Gyðinga en aðra jarðarbúa, svo að þeim leyfist ekki að verja sig af sömu hörku og öðrum. Dæmigerð eru ofsafengin viðbrögð við því, þegar Ísraelar svöruðu villimannslegri árás hryðjuverkasamtakanna Hamas á þá frá Gaza 7. október 2023 með gagnárás í því skyni að stöðva hryðjuverk Hamas. Hvað áttu Ísraelar að gera? „Ef Arabar leggja niður vopn, þá verður friður. Ef Ísraelar leggja niður vopn, þá verður Ísrael útrýmt,“ sagði Golda Meir. Tvær milljónir Araba eru ríkisborgarar í Ísrael og njóta þar fullra réttinda.

Íslensk tónskáld vilja, að Ísraelar sæti sömu meðferð og Rússar í alþjóðlegri söngvakeppni. En munurinn er sá, að Rússar réðust á Úkraínu, en Hamas á Ísrael. Hér er lagður allt annar mælikvarði á Ísraela en Rússa. Hvers vegna? Vegna þess að þeir eru Gyðingar. Horft er síðan fram hjá því, að erfitt er að gera greinarmun á Palestínumönnum á Gaza og Hamas. Þeir kusu yfir sig Hamas og virðast flestir styðja þessi viðbjóðslegu hryðjuverkasamtök, sem hafa það yfirlýsta markmið að útrýma Ísrael. Ekkert tillit er heldur tekið til þess, að Hamas skýtur sífellt eldflaugum á óbreytta borgara í Ísrael, tók gísla í árásinni 7. október og notar eigin konur og börn sem lifandi skildi. Hamas ber ábyrgð á því, þegar konur og börn falla í Gaza. Hvers vegna beinist reiðin ekki að þeim? Vegna þess að þeir eru ekki Gyðingar.

Gyðingar hafa alltaf skorið sig úr. Í Rómarveldi voru þeir ofsóttir, af því að þeir trúðu á einn Guð og þvertóku fyrir að dýrka keisarana. Á miðöldum kenndu sumir kristnir menn Gyðingum um krossfestingu Krists, og skyldu syndir feðranna koma niður á börnunum. Nú á dögum virðist helsta skýringin á Gyðingahatri vera, að þeir skara fram úr. 214 Gyðingar hafa hlotið Nóbelsverðlaun í vísindum, þrír Arabar.

(Fróðleiksmoli í Morgunblaðinu 16. desember 2023.)

Nýja Jórvík, nóvember 2023

Fyrst kynntist ég Antony Fisher, sem síðar varð Sir Antony, haustið 1980, þegar hann bauð mér og fleiri gestum á ráðstefnu Mont Pelerin-samtakanna í Stanford í Kaliforníu heim til sín í San Francisco. Hann og kona hans Dorian áttu glæsilega íbúð á 11. hæð að 1750 Taylor Street. Fisher var í breska flughernum í seinni heimsstyrjöld og sá þar bróður sinn farast. Hann strengdi þess þá heit að berjast fyrir betri heimi. Í stríðslok las hann Leiðina til ánauðar eftir Friedrich A. von Hayek í útdrætti, sem birtist í Reader’s Digest, en þar hélt Hayek því fram, að þjóðernisjafnaðarstefna Hitlers og sameignarstefna Stalíns væru sömu ættar, og varaði jafnframt við tilraunum til að taka upp miðstýrðan áætlunarbúskap, sem væri vart framkvæmanlegur nema í lögregluríki.

Fisher gekk á fund Hayeks til að leita ráða. Var hann að hugsa um að kasta sér út í stjórnmálabaráttu. Hayek sagði honum, að þeir menn hefðu mest áhrif, sem veldu dagskrána í stjórnmálum, réðu því, um hvað væri rætt og á hvaða forsendum, væru smiðir og hliðverðir hugmynda. Þess vegna skyldi hann stofna hugveitu. Fisher fór að ráðum Hayeks, og árið 1955 stofnaði hann Institute of Economic Affairs í Lundúnum, sem rannsakar, hvenær beita má verðlagningu í stað skattlagningar, leysa mál með frjálsum samtökum fólks frekar en valdboði að ofan. Hafði hún mikil áhrif á stefnu Thatchers og eftirmanna hennar.

Seinna átti Fisher eftir að endurtaka leikinn í öðrum löndum, og 1981 stofnaði hann Atlas Network, sem er alþjóðlegt net hugveitna. Nú eiga um 500 stofnanir í um 100 löndum aðild að netinu, og árlega heldur það uppskeruhátíð, Freedom Dinner. Árið 2023 var frelsiskvöldverðurinn í Nýju Jórvík 16. nóvember, og sótti ég hann. Foundation for Economic Freedom á Filipseyjum hlaut Templeton-verðlaunin fyrir markvissa starfsemi og Temba Nolutshungu frá Suður-Afríku Sir Antony Fisher-verðlaunin fyrir frumkvæði sitt og forystuhlutverk.

(Fróðleiksmoli í Morgunblaðinu 9. nóvember 2023.)

Adam Smith enn í fullu fjöri!

Þótt á þessu ári séu liðin rétt þrjú hundruð ár frá því, að Adam Smith, faðir hagfræðinnar, fæddist, eru hugmyndir hans enn sprelllifandi. Það er þess vegna fagnaðarefni, að hagfræðideild Háskóla Íslands og RSE, Rannsóknarmiðstöð í samfélags- og efnahagsmálum, skuli hafa fengið einn helsta sérfræðing heims í kenningum Smiths, Prófessor Craig Smith, til að halda fyrirlestur í hátíðarsal Háskólans miðvikudaginn 6. desember kl. 16.20. Hér ætla ég af því tilefni að segja örfá orð um tvær öflugustu hugmyndir Smiths, að eins gróði þurfi ekki að vera annars tap og að skipulag krefjist ekki alltaf skipuleggjanda.

Gróði án taps

Í Auðlegð þjóðanna, sem kom út árið 1776, varpaði Smith fram skýringu á því, hvernig einstaklingar og þjóðir gætu brotist úr fátækt í bjargálnir. Hún var fólgin í verkaskiptingunni. Í frjálsum viðskiptum fá menn það frá öðrum, sem þá vantar og aðrir hafa, og láta aðra fá það, sem aðra vantar og þeir hafa. Báðir græða, hvorugur tapar. Jón á Bægisá þýddi kvæði um þessa hugmynd eftir þýska skáldið Gellert:

Gáfur eigi þú hefir hinna,
hinum er varnað gáfna þinna,
og af þörfnunar þessum hag
er þjóða sprottið samfélag.

Einfaldasta dæmið er af Róbinson Krúsó og Föstudegi í skáldsögunni frægu. Setjum svo, að Róbinson kunni betur til fiskveiða en Föstudagur, en Föstudagur sé hins vegar lagnari í að tína kókoshnetur. Þá græða báðir á því, að Róbinson haldi sig að veiðum og Föstudagur að hnetutínslu, en þeir skiptist síðan á þessum verðmætum. Hið sama er að segja um þjóðir. Pólland hentar til kornyrkju, en Portúgal til vínræktar. Pólverjar og Portúgalir einbeita sér að því, sem þeir geta gert betur en aðrir, og skiptast síðan á korni og víni báðum í hag.

Náttúran hefur dreift mannlegum hæfileikum og landgæðum ójafnt, en frjáls viðskipti jafna metin, gera mönnum kleift að nýta hæfileika annarra og ólík gæði landa. Saga síðustu tvö hundruð ára hefur staðfest kenningu Smiths, svo að um munar. Þær þjóðir, sem auðvelda frjálsa samkeppni og stunda frjáls viðskipti, hafa stikað á sjömílnaskóm inn í ótrúlega velsæld samanborið við fyrri tíma. Hinar sitja fastar í fátækt. Árlega er reiknuð út vísitala atvinnufrelsis fyrir langflest lönd heims á vegum Fraser stofnunarinnar í Kanada. Ef löndunum er skipt í fernt eftir atvinnufrelsi, þá eru meðaltekjur 10% tekjulægsta hópsins í frjálsasta fjórðungnum hærri en meðaltekjur allra í ófrjálsasta fjórðungnum. Með öðrum orðum eru lífskjör fátækasta fólksins í frjálsustu löndunum betri en almenn lífskjör í ófrjálsustu löndunum.

Skipulag án skipuleggjanda

Í verkum sínum kom Adam Smith einnig orðum að þeirri merkilegu hugmynd, að skipulag krefjist ekki alltaf skipuleggjanda. Það geti sprottið upp úr frjálsum samskiptum, gagnkvæmri aðlögun einstaklinga. Markaðurinn er sá vettvangur, sem menn hafa til að skiptast á vöru og þjónustu. Þar hækka menn eða lækka verð á vöru sinni og þjónustu, uns jafnvægi hefur náðst, milli framboðs og eftirspurnar, innflutnings og útflutnings, sparnaðar og fjárfestingar. Þetta jafnvægi er sjálfsprottið, ekki valdboðið. Það fæst með verðlagningu, ekki skipulagningu. Atvinnulífið getur verið skipulegt án þess að vera skipulagt. Auðvitað er það jafnvægi, sem þar getur náðst, ekki fullkomið, en það er þó sífellt að leiðrétta sig sjálft eftir þeim upplýsingum, sem berast með gróða eða tapi. Menn græða, ef þeim tekst að fullnægja þörfum viðskiptavinanna betur en keppinautarnir. Þeir tapa, ef þeir gera þrálát mistök og skeyta ekki um breytilegan smekk og áhugamál viðskiptavinanna.

Fræg er sú hugmynd Smiths, að við væntum ekki málsverðar okkar vegna góðvildar slátrarans, bruggarans eða bakarans, heldur vegna umhyggju þeirra um eigin hag. Örn Arnarson orti í sama anda:

Vinsemd brást og bróðurást,
breyttist ást hjá konum.
Matarást var skömminni skást,
skjaldan brást hún vonum.

 

Matarástin tengir menn, sem þekkjast ekki, betur saman en náungakærleikurinn, sem nær eðli málsins samkvæmt aðeins til næstu náunga, vandamanna, nágranna, hugsanlega samlanda. Í frjálsri samkeppni leiðir _ósýnileg hönd“ þá, sem vilja græða, að því að þjóna þörfum viðskiptavina sinna. Það er hins vegar misskilningur, að Smith hafi verið stuðningsmaður lágríkisins (minimum state). Hann taldi ríkið gegna þremur mikilvægum hlutverkum, að tryggja landvarnir, halda uppi lögum og reglu og sjá um, að nóg yrði framleitt af svokölluðum samgæðum (public goods). Meðal annars hafði hann áhyggjur af því, að verkaskiptingin gæti þrengt óhóflega sjónarhorn einstaklinganna og þess vegna þyrfti ríkið að víkka það út með öflugri alþýðumenntun.

 

Hagmenni og hagvöxtur

Um Adam Smith á það við, að þeir hafa mest um hann að segja, sem minnst hafa lesið eftir hann. Því er til dæmis haldið fram, að hann hafi talið manninn vera hagmenni, homo economicus, sem hugsi aðeins um eigin hag. (Um þetta hefur Sigfús Bjartmars sett saman smellna ljóðabók!) Því fer fjarri. Hagmennið er greiningartæki, ekki lýsing á manneðlinu. Þetta greiningartæki gerir okkur kleift að spá fyrir um niðurstöður, ef og þegar menn keppa að eigin hag, eins og flestir gera í viðskiptum við ókunnuga. Konur láta til dæmis oftast stjórnast af móðurást í samskiptum við börn sín, fórna miklu. En þegar þær fara út á markaðinn, reyna þær að kaupa sem besta vöru við sem lægstu verði, fórna engu. Þar stjórnast þær eins og flestir aðrir af matarástinni. Og þótt menn velji sér eflaust oftast ævistarf eftir áhugamálum og hæfileikum, ekki tekjumöguleikum einum saman, er óhætt að spá því, ef tekjur af einhverju starfi snarminnka, að færri muni þá leggja það fyrir sig, en ef þær aukast, að fleiri muni þá sækjast eftir því. Og öll skáldin, sem hæðast að hagfræðingum fyrir að vita allt um verð, en ekkert um verðmæti, munu jafnan taka lægra farmiðaverð fram yfir hærra, þegar þau fljúga í upplestrarferðir.

Því er líka haldið fram, að hugmyndin um hagvöxt standist ekki, þegar til langs tíma sé litið. Kapítalisminn, hugarfóstur Adams Smiths, sé ekki sjálfbær. Nú var Smith sjálfur enginn sérstakur stuðningsmaður kapítalista. Hann studdi frjálsa samkeppni, af því að hún er neytendum í hag, og hann taldi með sterkum rökum verkaskiptinguna greiðfærustu leiðina til almennrar hagsældar. En í raun og veru er hagvöxtur sjaldnast fólginn í að framleiða meira, heldur miklu frekar í að framleiða minna, minnka fyrirhöfnina, finna ódýrari leiðir að gefnu marki, spara sér tíma og orku. Auk þess er hagvöxturinn afkastamesti sáttasemjarinn. Í stað þess að auka eigin hlut með því að hrifsa frá öðrum geta menn reynt að auka hann með því að nýta betur það, sem þeir hafa, og bæta það síðan, hlúa að því, svo að það vaxi og dafni í höndum þeirra. Og þegar að er gáð, eru mengun og rányrkja vegna þess, að enginn á og gætir auðlinda. Umhverfisvernd krefst umhverfisverndara, einkaeignarréttar eða einkaafnotaréttar á auðlindum.

Áhrif Smiths á Íslandi

Ekki verður skilið við Adam Smith án þess að minnast þess, að líklega hafði hann einhver heillavænlegustu óbein áhrif á Íslandssöguna allra erlendra manna. Í maí 1762 höfðu þrír Norðmenn í löngu ferðalagi um Evrópu heimsótt Smith í Glasgow, en hann var þá þegar orðinn kunnur og virtur heimspekingur, ekki síst vegna bókarinnar Kenningar um siðferðiskenndirnar, sem kom út árið 1759. Þeir voru Andreas Holt og bræðurnir Peter og Carsten Anker. Þeir urðu góðir vinir Smiths og hittu hann aftur í Toulouse í Frakklandi í mars 1764. Þegar þeir sneru heim, tóku þeir við háum embættum í dansk-norska ríkinu. Holt var til dæmis formaður landsnefndarinnar fyrri 1770–1772, sem lagði á ráðin um umbætur á Íslandi. Þessir vinir Smiths höfðu forgöngu um það, að Auðlegð þjóðanna var þýdd á dönsku, og kom hún út árin 1779–1780. Í bréfi til Holts í október 1780 þakkaði Smith honum fyrir skemmtilegan ferðapistil um Ísland og lýsti yfir ánægju sinni með, að bókin skyldi komin út. Carsten Anker og þýðandi bókarinnar, Frands Dræbye, störfuðu báðir í danska Rentukammerinu og höfðu áreiðanlega sitt að segja um það, að einokunarverslunin var afnumin árið 1787, en hún hafði verið einhver helsti dragbíturinn á vöxt og viðgang íslensks atvinnulífs. Yfirmaður Rentukammersins á þeirri tíð, Ernst Schimmelmann, var líka snortinn af frelsisrökum Smiths. Líklega eiga fáar þjóðir eins mikið undir frjálsum alþjóðaviðskiptum og við Íslendingar. Það er því full ástæða til að leggja við hlustir í hátíðarsal Háskólans kl. 16.40 miðvikudaginn 6. desember.

(Grein í Morgunblaðinu 5. desember 2023.)

Snorri Sturluson as a Conservative Liberal

European Diary: Reykjavik, December 2021

The name of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik is in English ‘Smoke Bay’. The place received the name in 874 from the first settler in Iceland, Ingolf Arnarson from the west of Norway, after he arrived at a bay in the southwest of Iceland and saw steam columns rise from hot springs there. He decided to establish a farm on the spot. For the next nine centuries, Reykjavik was just one of the around five thousand farms scattered on Iceland’s coastline, until a village began slowly to form there in late eighteenth century. Iceland had been an independent Commonwealth from 930 to 1262 after which she became a tributary of the Norwegian king. In 1380, the Norwegian crown was inherited by the king of Denmark, and after that Iceland was ruled from the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Almost all officials in Iceland were however Icelandic and in the nineteenth century they settled mostly in Reykjavik. Moreover, when the Danish king in 1843 restored the Icelandic parliament it was convened in Reykjavik and not at its old site in the Icelandic countryside. Thus, when the Danes granted Iceland home rule in 1904, Reykjavik was already the unofficial capital of Iceland, then still a Danish dependency. In 1918, however, Iceland became a sovereign country in a personal union with the Danish king, with Reykjavik as her capital, which the city remained when a republic was proclaimed in 1944.

A Clean, Green, and Safe City

Reykjavik is the world’s northernmost capital of a sovereign country, and it is the westernmost sizeable European city, a true European outpost. Today, it is one of the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities on earth: after all, Iceland has the lowest poverty rate of all countries, the greatest income equality, and one of the lowest crime rates. One reason the city is so clean is that it need not burn any fossil fuels to heat its houses. Instead, since the 1930s and 1940s hot water from nearby thermal springs have been used for that purpose, passing into a vast network of pipes and on to simple radiators in each building. The pioneer in this ingenious use of Iceland’s vast thermal resources was civil engineer and entrepreneur Jon Thorlaksson, who was Prime Minister for a while and later Mayor of Reykjavik. He was the founder and first leader of Iceland’s conservative-liberal Independence Party, and in 1992 I published his biography commissioned by Reykjavik’s geothermal utility.

Snorri’s Two Political Ideas

It was in Reykjavik on 2 December 2021, at a seminar held by the University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies, that I read a paper on the Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson as an early proponent of the conservative-liberal tradition in politics. Snorri (1179–1241) is probably the most famous Icelander of all times, the author of the acclaimed Edda, on Nordic mythology and poems, Heimskringla, the history of the Norwegian kings, and Egil’s Saga, one of the best Icelandic sagas. In my paper, I pointed out that in Heimskringla (probably written between 1220 and 1237) Snorri clearly sympathised with two political ideas of the Middle Ages, that kings were subject to the law like everybody else and that if they broke the law, they could be deposed. Indeed, Snorri went further and said in a speech that he put into the mouth of Icelandic farmer Einar from Thvera in 1024 that since kings were uneven, some good and some bad, it was best to have no king, as was the case in Iceland during the Commonwealth.

The First Individual?

Moreover, Egil’s Saga by Snorri can be read as a celebration of individuality: the warrior-poet Egil Skallagrimsson was one of the first genuine individuals to step out of the mists of family, tribe, and region. According to Lord Acton, St. Thomas Aquinas was the first Whig, but arguably it was rather Snorri who deserved that epithet. Likewise, Jacob Burckhardt had taught that individuality first emerged in Renaissance Italy, but a case could be made that it emerged with Egil, who had a rich inner life, expressed in his poems. I suggested that the Icelandic sagas were written when the Icelanders, challenged by Norway, had to reaffirm their national identity. Probably Egil’s Saga was written in 1239–1241, after Snorri’s second visit the Norwegian Court where he fell out with the king. Finally, I wondered whether Snorri’s political programme, to maintain friendly relations with Norway without Iceland becoming a tributary of the Norwegian king, was feasible at the time. I recalled that in late thirteenth century, what is now Switzerland was forming in the Alps, an independent country without a king. The Swiss never succumbed to foreign potentates. If the Swiss could do it, why not the Icelanders?

Comments by a Critic

History Professor Sverrir Jakobsson commented on my paper. He conceded that liberal or anti-royalist sentiments could be detected in Heimskringla, but he questioned whether Snorri was in fact the author of Egil’s Saga, adding that in his lifetime Snorri did not really behave as an opponent of the Norwegian king. I responded that the main source on Snorri’s life, his cousin Sturla Thordson, also a well-known chronicler, seemed biased against him. It should be recalled, also, that Snorri was of course not hostile to the Norwegians. He wanted friendly relations with them, but not servitude under them.

(The Conservative 26 November 2023.)

When Prometheus Becomes Procrustes

European Diary: Prague, November 2021

Unsurprisingly, Prague has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. It was long the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the residence of several rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, and although that strange entity was neither Holy, Roman, nor Empire, its rulers certainly lived in magnificient palaces. Many of Prague’s impressive buildings date from the late Middle Ages, and the city mostly escaped destruction in the Second World War. It has a peculiar quaint charm, not least because of its many old churches, monasteries and private palaces: it is indeed called ‘the city of a hundred spires’. On the left bank of the Vltava River (Moldau), the Prague Castle towers over the city, the world’s largest ancient castle, with the picturesque fourteenth-century Charles Bridge connecting the two banks. On the right bank are the Old town, the New Town (which is also quite old) and the Jewish Quarter.

Two Meetings of the Mont Pelerin Society

I first visited Prague in 1991, attending a regional meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, the international academy of liberal scholars that Friedrich von Hayek founded in 1947. The 1991 meeting was organised by the economist Vaclav Klaus who had been Finance Minister since 1989, when communism collapsed. He became Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and after the secession of Slovakia a year later Prime Minister of the Czech Republic for five years and then President for ten years, in 2003–2013. In the chapter on Milton Friedman in my two-volume book Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers I describe the comprehensive and successful economic liberalisation in Central and Eastern Europe which was inspired by Friedman and in the Czech Republic implemented by Klaus. My friend Birgir Isl. Gunnarsson, Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, was my guest at the meeting, and the two of us had a good time at some of the city’s jazz clubs. A lawyer by training and a former Mayor of Reykjavik, Gunnarsson was a jazz enthusiast and an accomplished piano player.

In 2012, I returned to Prague to attend the general meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, where Klaus, now President, played a major role. One night, he hosted an unforgettable party for us in the large gardens of his residence, the Prague Castle, in the mild September weather, with an unparalleled view of the city in the twilight. I used the occasion to chat with my old friend Dr. Edwin Feulner, who helped me a lot when I organised a meeting of the Society in Iceland in 2005. He was President of the Society in 1998–2000. I also had an interesting discussion with Professor Allan Meltzer, a renowned monetarist and author of a seminal work on the US Fed. He had recently written a book, In Defence of Capitalism. In Prague he was nominated President of the Mont Pelerin Society for 2012–2014.

On another Prague night, I had dinner with an old friend, Elisalex, whose full name is Marie Elizabeth von Wuthenau-Hohenthurm. Her husband Eduardo Helguera was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. Elisalex and Eduardo had been my gracious hosts when I visited Argentina in 1997. Then staying in her sister’s place on the Recoleta in the centre of Buenos Aires, I noticed a lot of books about Austria under the Habsburgs. I asked the sisters about their interest in this period. The explanation turned out to be that Sophie Duchess von Hohenberg, the wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and shot with him in Sarajevo in 1914, was their great-aunt, sister of their maternal grandmother. Indeed, Elisalex’ father, Franz Ferdinand von Wuthenau-Hohenthurm, was named after the Austrian heir to the Habsburg throne. He had emigrated to Argentina after the First World War, arriving penniless. The great-grandfather of the two sisters had been a Bohemian nobleman and diplomat, Bohuslav Count Chotek of Chotkowa and Wognin. Elisalex was not only attending the Mont Pelerin Society meeting, but also travelling in Central Europe to take a look at some of the castles that had belonged to her family in the past. A melancholic journey, I would think.

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience

I have also been a frequent visitor in Prague in connection with my participation since 2012 in the Platform of European Memory and Conscience which has its headquarters there. The Platform was established in 2011 at the urging of the European Parliament, and its main goal is to keep alive the memory of the many victims of totalitarianism in the twentieth century, the ‘ravaged century’, as Robert Conquest called it. I learned a lot from my conversations at Platform meetings in Prague with Mustafa Dzhemilev, leader of the Crimean Tatars, Sofi Oksanen, the award-winning Fenno-Estonian novelist, Vytautas Landsbergis, former President of Lithuania, Bishop László Tökes, a Hungarian-speaking former Romanian dissident and MEP, and Professor Stéphane Courtois, who in 1997 edited the seminal Black Book of Communism which I subsequently translated into Icelandic.

On 11–13 November 2021 the Platform held its annual Council of Members in Prague, alongside an international conference on the fateful year of 1991. I delivered the keynote paper at the conference where I argued that the failure of the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 was not primarily because the wrong people had made it (although that was certainly true), but because the Marxist project itself was unrealistic and therefore bound to fail. Thus, Stalinism and Maoism were the inevitable outcomes of Marxism. The main reason was that without a capital market there was no way of making rational decisions about the utilisation of capital goods, as the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek had demonstrated. The heroic Prometheus seizing fire from the gods, in Marxist mythology, therefore would turn into the vicious Procrustes trying to force all his guests to fit in the same bed. I recalled the failed coup attempt in the Soviet Union in August 1991 which provided an opportunity for the Baltic nations to reaffirm their independence after decades of occupation. My old friend, Prime Minister David Oddsson of Iceland, long a firm anti-communist, used the occasion to resume diplomatic relations with the Baltic countries. I emphasised that even if the Marxist project was bound to fail economically, it was by no means certain that communists would relinquish political power peacefully, as the Soviet coup attempt in 1991 indeed showed.

(The Conservative 26 November 2023.)

Commercial Society Creates, Not Only Dissolves

European Diary: Budapest, November 2021

Budapest is one of the many European cities that breathe history. It was originally two cities, Buda and Pest, on the opposite banks of the Danube River, populated by the Hungarians who in the ninth century suddenly appeared in Europe from the Asian steppes. Pillaged by Mongolian invaders in mid-thirteenth century, Buda, the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary, nevertheless became a centre of Renaissance culture, which abruptly ended when the Ottomans occupied it in 1526. The two cities were only liberated by the Habsburgs in 1686. They were unified into one city, Budapest, in 1873 and formed the co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Empire until 1918. This was the golden age of Budapest, with many magnificent neo-classical buildings being constructed and the city becoming a vibrant, cosmopolitan centre. After the First World War, however, Hungary lost two thirds of her territory while more than three million Hungarians suddenly found themselves subjects of other countries, mainly Czechoslovakia and Romania, but also Yugoslavia. (So much for national self-determination!) The monarchy was not formally abolished, and Miklós Horthy, an Admiral in the former Austro-Hungarian Navy, suppressed a communist insurrection and became regent. The wits observed that Hungary was a monarchy without a king, governed by an admiral without a navy, in a country without a coast.

Three Hungarian Economists

Moreover, Hungary almost became a country without thinkers, because in those hard times many original and significant writers and scholars moved abroad, including the brilliant novelist and polemicist Arthur Koestler, later to become the most effective anti-communist intellectual of the Cold War, Michael Polanyi, a renowned chemist, but also a respected philosopher of science and society, and Peter Bauer, a specialist on economic development, elevated by Margaret Thatcher to the House of Lords. I knew Lord Bauer personally: we often met at meetings of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international academy of scholars founded by Friedrich von Hayek in 1947. Bauer was a persuasive critic of the aid without development which could be witnessed in poor countries, wanting to replace it with development without aid, through free trade, foreign investments and the rule of law. Incidentally, two other Hungarian economists with very different political views had in the 1960s been influential advisers to British Labour governments, Nicholas Kaldor and Thomas Balogh, both eventually elevated to the House of Lords. They were known as the ‘Budapest lords’, as Kaldor was fat and jovial and therefore obviously the Buddha, whereas Balogh was thin and unpleasant, the pest. I once met Kaldor. He denounced monetarism in a lecture at the University of Iceland on 18 June 1981 where I asked some critical questions which he politely answered. It is a different story that Kaldor’s suggestion of an expenditure tax has some merits.

Wine Tasting in Budapest

After the collapse of communism, Budapest has regained a lot of its old charm, and I visited the city in November 2021 as the guest of the Danube Institute, ably run by John O’Sullivan who was an adviser to and speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, and later an editor at Radio Free Europe and then National Review. John, a practising catholic and a thoughtful conservative with classical liberal leanings, wrote a remarkable book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, where he argued that the Soviet Union was really brought down by the singular coincidence that three forceful and charismatic anti-communists occupied at the same time the offices of the President of the United States, the Head of the Catholic Church, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), and Margaret Thatcher. A friend of mine, Richard Bolton, a wine collector and connoisseur, was in Budapest at the same time as I. He had brought with him a few nice bottles from his large collection and we had a memorable wine-tasting afternoon at John’s place with a few sponsors of his institute.

I spent a few days in Budapest, and I would recommend the excellent coffeehouses in the centre. One of them, Scruton, is named after the English philosopher and polymath Sir Roger Scruton who has many admirers in Hungary, including Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. (Incidentally, Orbán attended the same Oxford college as I, Pembroke, but a few years later.) Budapest is however probably best known for the many thermal baths which make use of the city’s hot springs. The biggest and most popular one is Széchenyi, located inside Budapest’s City Park. It is well worth a visit. Again, one night in Budapest I went to the excellent Michelin-one star restaurant Laurel. The decor was modern and the food light and tasty while the waiters were friendly and cheerful.

When Did Conservative Liberalism Emerge?

I spoke at a meeting of the Danube Institute on 8 November about my two-volume book, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers. In my talk, I identified John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith as the founding fathers of the conservative-liberal tradition with their defence of commercial society, spontaneously developed and based on free trade and private property. However, conservative liberalism as a separate tradition was only clearly articulated with the critical response to the French Revolution by Edmund Burke, Benjamin Constant, and Alexis de Tocqueville. The British Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution of 1776 were made to preserve and expand existing liberties, whereas the French Revolution of 1789 and, much later, the Russian Revolution of 1917, were attempts to reconstruct society according to the ideas of Rousseau and Marx, respectively. Such attempts were bound to fail, as Ludwig von Mises and Hayek demonstrated.

I offered my opinion that Hayek was the most distinguished modern representative of this conservative-liberal tradition. His theory of spontaneous order described how coordination without commands was possible and indeed indispensable, utilising both the price mechanism and time-tested practices. Another intriguing conservative-liberal thinker was Michael Oakeshott who argued that modern man had acquired the will and the ability to make choices and that accordingly the society fit for modern man was that in which government only enforced general (end-independent) rules enabling different individuals to live peacefully together.

Is Something Amiss in Classical Liberalism?

Two scholars associated with the Danube Institute, Professor Ferenc Hörcher and Dr. David L. Dusenbury, commented on my presentation. They both criticised it from a conservative point of view, although they agreed that conservatives and liberals should stand united against socialism. It seemed to them that I was really presenting classical liberalism rather than any kind of conservatism. What was lacking in classical liberalism was however a sense of community, an awareness of the many ties and commitments people had by virtue of their identity rather than their choices. In response, I pointed out that especially Burke and Tocqueville were very much aware and in favour of such ties and commitments: they envisaged a vibrant civil society, not only an almighty state confronting separate and therefore powerless individuals. It was true, I conceded, that commercial society could dissolve or at least challenge some traditional communities, but at the same time it facilitated the creation of new communities. The best example was the family: there comes a day when you leave your old family and form a new one. Even in what appears to be a concrete, heartless jungle, such as New York City, there are many active communities, spontaneously formed, although not always visible at first sight.

(The Conservative 26 November 2023.)