Liberty Made Inspiring Again

European Diary: Belgrade, May 2022

Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers as well at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. It is therefore not surprising that it is a very old city, indeed one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and in the world. Belgrade means White City, and it is named after its fortress, which was built on a white ridge of strategic importance. After the fall of the Roman Empire it was conquered and controlled and sometimes destroyed by various invaders, such as the Huns, Goths, Hungarians, and Byzantines. In the 13th century it became the capital of the so-called Serbian Despotate but in 1521 it fell to the Ottomans. After the Serbian wars for independence, Belgrade became in 1841 the capital again of Serbia, first the principality and then the kingdom. In 1918 the city became the capital of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which was in 1929 changed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. This was an artificial country, jumbled together at the end of the First World War. It was basically a hostile takeover by Serbia of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, Northern Macedonia, and Montenegro. It was therefore not surprising that Yugoslavia broke up soon after the death of the communist leader Josip Broz Tito who had for decades ruled these diverse territories with an iron hand. But Belgrade itself has gained from diversity as I discovered when I was  there in May 2022. It is a lively and pleasant city. Being a meeting place of many cultures, it is however hard to tell whether it belongs to the East or the West.

On the Bank of the Danube

In Belgrade I was presenting my book in two volumes on Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers at a seminar organised jointly by the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Belgrade. The evening before the seminar I went for a stroll from my hotel down to the Danube. I stood for a while and watched this magnificent river which flows through four European capitals, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Belgrade. Originating in the Black Forest in southern Germany, it empties into the Black Sea through the Danube Delta between Romania and Ukraine. It is the second-largest river in Europe, after Volga in Russia. Indeed, the Habsburg Empire was sometimes called the Danubian Empire. Although a famous waltz by Johann Strauss Junior is called ‘On the beautiful blue Danube’, in fact the river is not blue: it is gray or even muddy. Nevertheless, the Danube was and is a great European waterway, connecting east and west, south and north. Italian writer Claudio Magris has written a book about the river, Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea. He uses the Danube as a metaphor for life, as it winds safely from its source to the sea.

As I stood there on the river bank, I could not but reflect on the fact that sometimes history can be a burden. There are in the Balkans so many historical sources of enmity, so many battles to remember, so many betrayals to avenge, between Christians and Muslims, Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxes, Serbs and Croats, Slavs and Albanians, and so on, and between traditional allies and enemies of nearby powers, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, and their successor states. It is only if and when the many and diverse peoples of this European frontier territory can find and develop the appropriate arrangements and political units, preferably as small as possible, that history for them will become less a burden than a blessing, full of inspiring and meaningful moments, myths, legends, songs, and tales, unifying them, enabling them to identify with a community, creating a sense of belonging.

The Courage to Be Utopian

At the seminar, I chose a somewhat different topic from what I have been talking about before in many European cities. What I now emphasised was that liberty had to be made exciting again, seen as an intellectual adventure, recognised as a precondition for innovation and entrepreneurship. I recalled Hayek’s observation in his celebrated essay on ‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’:

The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

Indeed, Hayek and another renowned economist, Milton Friedman, made economic liberalism inspiring again. Paradoxically, their courage to be (or at least appear) utopian turned out to be both economically practical and politically successful. Friedman once said to me: ‘First, they try to ignore you. Then, they try to ridicule you. Finally, they say that of course money matters, but that everybody already knew that.’

In the chapter on Friedman in the second volume of my book I describe the theory and practice of what is sometimes called ‘neoliberalism’: the reconstruction of Germany, Austria and Italy after the Second World War (led by Ludwig Erhard, Reinhard Kamitz, and Luigi Einaudi, respectively, all members of Hayek’s Mont Pelerin Society); the comprehensive economic reforms in countries as diverse politically as Great Britain under the Conservatives, Chile ruled by a military junta, and New Zealand at the initiative of social democrats; and the return to normalcy in Central and Eastern Europe, guided by Mart Laar in Estonia, Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic (both members of the Mont Pelerin Society) and other economic liberals. Speakers at the seminar included Dr. Barbara Kolm of the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna and Professor Christopher Lingle of Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala. Professor Sinisa Zaric was the Chair.

An Evening in Belgrade

After the seminar, on my last evening in Belgrade, I went with a friend to one of the city’s finest Michelin-star restaurants, Salon 1905, close to the Sava River as it joins the Danube. We walked from the hotel. I found it extraordinary that a street on the way, Gavrila Principa, is named after the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo in 1914. Gavril Princip committed one of the foulest crimes of the twentieth century, with terrible consequences. Be that as it may, the restaurant itself is in a magnificent, ornate house in the old town, built in 1905. This house was then the headquarters of a bank, directed by one of Serbia’s greatest capitalists at the time, Luka Ćelović. The food was delicious and the service impeccable. Capitalism has returned to Serbia. Hopefully it will connect East and West, and turn the burden of history into a blessing.

(The Conservative, 30 December 2023.)

Make Trade, Not War

European Diary: Sarajevo, May 2022

Sarajevo! The name reminds us all of the First World War (originally called the Great War) which broke out after the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in the city on 28 June 1914, with his wife, Duchess Sophie von Hohenburg. The perpetrator was a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, a young, fanatical nationalist with close ties to the Serbian secret service (which supplied the weapons to him and his accomplices). Serbian nationalists were hostile to Franz Ferdinand because he wanted to turn the Danubian Monarchy into a federal union which probably would have greatly reduced discontent among the many Slavic peoples under Habsburg rule, such as Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croatians, Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats. Serbian ultra-nationalists had in 1903 stormed the Royal Palace in Serbia’s capital, Belgrad, shot the pro-Austrian king, Alexander I Obrenovich, and his wife, Draga, stripped their bodies and mutilated them, before throwing them out of a second-floor window into a pile of garden manure. A long-time enemy of the Obrenović family, Peter Karachorchevich, was proclaimed king of Serbia as Peter I. He was hostile to the Austrians, and pro-Russian. After this macabre event, Serbia pursued aggressive nationalist policies, aimed at creating a Greater Serbia by extending her rule to all Slavic peoples in the Western Balkans, then under Habsburg rule. Since Serbian participation in the assassination of the Archduke and his wife was considered almost certain, after the assassination Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia which was not met, whereupon Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, followed by her ally, Imperial Germany. France and Russia subsequently declared war on Austria-Hungary and Germany.

A World Lost

The French were not really concerned about Serbia: they wanted to take revenge on the Germans for their humiliation in the 1870 Franco-German war and to regain the territories then lost. Nevertheless, this would have remained mostly a Balkan affair, if the United Kingdom had not made the fateful decision to join France and Russia in supporting Serbia, with the United States entering the war on their side in 1917. This turned an almost certain swift victory of Austria-Hungary and Germany over Serbia and Russia into a prolonged, vicious, sanguinary world war, leading to the collapse of four empires, and the Bolshevik Revolution and the disintegration of the liberal international order. In retrospect, it is amazing not only how catastrophic the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife turned out to be, but also how entirely evitable it was. The Archduke was supposed to be opening the state museum in Sarajevo which had as the capital of Bosnia flourished under Austrian rule since 1878. On his way from the Train Station to the Town Hall a bomb was thrown at his car, bouncing off its back hood and exploding under the next car in the motorcade, wounding the people in it. The Archduke and his wife escaped unharmed. After a reception at the Town Hall (depicted above), the Archduke wanted to visit the victims of the bombing. On the way to the hospital, his driver made a wrong turn, and when he realised this, he applied the brakes, stopping the car on a side street just where one of the would-be assassins, Princip, happened to be. Princip could therefore shoot the couple at short range.

The collapses of the Russian and Ottoman Empires were certainly not to be lamented, as many oppressed nations now were able to establish their own states. (For better or worse, a nation may require a state. What is the difference between a language and a dialect? That the language is supported by a navy.) The collapse of the Danubian Empire meant however the disintegration of a large area of free trade and common currency in Europe’s midst, under a relatively liberal regime. One of Princip’s co-conspirators, the Bosnian Serb Vaso ÄŒubrilović, only seventeen at the time, was released from prison at the end of the war and became a historian and in Communist Yugoslavia a government minister. Looking back after fifty years, he expressed regret about the conspiracy. ‘We destroyed a beautiful world that was lost forever due to the war that followed.’ This was a world eloquently described in Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday. On the 100th anniversary of the assassination, a prominent journalist, the Bosnian Croat Fedzad Forto, denounced it in an interview with the BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation. The Bosnians had been much better off under the Habsburgs than under the Yugoslavian (Serbian) kings and the communists, he said. ‘You can look at the historical records and see how Austria-Hungary cared about issues like the rule of law. We lost so much in 1918.’

Two Ways of Keeping Peace

It was therefore appropriate that I discussed trade, war and peace at a seminar on 12 May 2022 in Sarajevo, organised by the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, SSST, and the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna. I repeated my argument, made elsewhere, that small states may be feasible and, in many cases, more efficient and desirable than larger political units, but that they are vulnerable, as the recent Russian attack on Ukraine showed. The events that unfolded in Sarajevo more than a century ago demonstrated this, as Czech writer Milan Kundera once commented:

The Austrian empire had the great opportunity of making Central Europe into a strong, unified state. But the Austrians, alas, were divided between an arrogant Pan-German nationalism and their own Central European mission. They did not succeed in building a federation of equal nations, and their failure has been the misfortune of the whole of Europe. Dissatisfied, the other nations of Central Europe blew apart their empire in 1918, without realising that, in spite of its inadequacies, it was irreplaceable. After the First World War, Central Europe was therefore transformed into a region of small, weak states, whose vulnerability ensured first Hitler’s conquest and ultimately Stalin’s triumph.

Being vulnerable, small states must form alliances with one another and with stronger states.

There are essentially two pillars of peace, I observed in Sarajevo. One is free trade. Your propensity to shoot at your neighbour diminishes, if you see in him a potential customer. And, when goods are not allowed to cross borders, soldiers will. There is truth in this observation, but it is not the whole truth. The other indispensable pillar of peace is preparedness, as the Romans knew: Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. (Or as the Anglo-Irish army officer and writer William Blacker exclaimed: ‘Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry!’) The free countries of the world, under the leadership of the United States, must be powerful enough that nobody dares attack them. This was the main idea behind NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the defence alliance of the West. If we do not all hang together, we shall all hang separately. What we are faced with now, I said in Sarajevo, is that China and Russia seem to reject democratic capitalism, with its tolerance, decentralisation, diversity, and respect for human rights and with the peaceful means of replacing bad rulers with better ones. The very existence of individual freedom and democracy is seen by oriental despots as external threats.

What We are Defending

I concluded my talk in Sarajevo by stressing that the West has to know what it wants to defend. I have myself recently published a book about Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers who had since the Middle Ages articulated the political tradition of limited government, private property, and free trade. It was a tradition which included philosophers and economists as different as St. Thomas Aquinas and Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises and Robert Nozick, Herbert Spencer and Karl Popper, not to mention its two best-known modern proponents, Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. It was, and is, a tradition which has encouraged economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurship, but also the development of individual skills, abilities and talents, enabling individuals to live meaningful lives and flourish. It was a tradition which recognised the many intermediate institutions, habits, manners, conventions and customs which had developed spontaneously in the moral space between individuals and the state, and the several ties, commitments and attachments they inherited and formed, outside the realm of contract.

Other speakers at the Sarajevo seminar were Austrian economist Dr. Barbara Kolm on globalisation, American businessman Terry Anker on business regulations, and American Professor Christopher Lingle on entrepreneurship. Professor Vjekoslav Domljan, Dean of the Economics Faculty of the SSST, chaired the meeting. Sarajevo, the capital of a Bosnian kingdom in the Middle Ages, under the Ottomans between 1461 and 1878 and  the Habsburgs between 1878 and 1918, now seems peaceful. But a visitor can sense how strongly many Bosnians want to be a part of the West.

(The Conservative, 28 December 2023.)

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.)