Dr. Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland and Academic Director of RNH, presented his recent book, Conservative Liberalism, North and South: Grundtvig, Einaudi and their Relevance Today, 18 March 2025 at a meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Mexico City 16–19 March. He pointed out that the Danish poet and pastor N. F. S. Grundtvig, probably his country’s most influential thinker ever, filled a gap in classical liberal theory: he proposed a national liberalism, with due respect for spontaneous organisations, companies, societies, congregations, clubs, collectives and other civil associations, and most importantly the nation, giving people a sense of belonging, enlarging their selves. In this, to some extent, and undoubtedly unconsciously, he followed in the footsteps of Edmund Burke, Benjamin Constant, and Alexis de Tocqueville, whose main explanation of the failure of the French Revolution was that France had lacked these intermediate institutions, these ‘little platoons’, between the individual and the state, which served both to train people in social adaptation and to constrain the power of the state.

A special Nordic or Grundtvigian model in international relations could be discerned, Gissurarson submitted. 1) Right of secession, used by Norway in 1905, Finland in 1917, and Iceland in 1918. 2) Border changes by plebiscites, as in Schleswig in 1920. 3) Autonomy of national enclaves, such as the Aaland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Sami regionals in the Scandinavian far north. 4) Arbitration of conflicts by international bodies, as between Sweden and Finland over the Aaland Islands in 1921, and between Denmark and Norway over Eastern Greenland in 1933. 5) Cooperation and integration with a minimal surrender of sovereignty in the Nordic Council and by negotiations, including the abolition of passports within the Nordic countries, reciprocal legal and social rights and duties in the Nordic countries, and a common labour market.

Gissurarson compared the national liberal Grundtvig with the Italian liberal federalist Luigi Einaudi, a distinguished economist and President of Italy in 1948–1955. Einaudi had become convinced by the two world wars that the only way in Europe to protect free trade, limited government, and private property—the three pillars of a free society—was to found a European federation. Gissurarson submitted that the European Union had not turned out in the way Einaudi envisaged. The economic integration of Europe was a success, but the political integration which started after that, in the early 1990s, threatened not only the nation state but also individual liberties. Europe should be an open market, and not a closed state. Gissurarson mentioned some possible reformes of the European Union in the spritit of Einaudi’s liberalism: 1) to transfer legislative power from the unelected, non-transparent and unaccountable European Commission to the European Parliament; 2) to divide the European Parliament into two chambers, in Brussels and Strasbourg, where one would replace the European Council and represent the European states and the other one would be elected by popular vote; 3) to turn the European Commission into a normal civil service; 4) to split up the Court of Justice of the European Union into two courts, one with the sole role of deciding on the competence of member states and the union guided by the Subsidiarity Principle and the other one an appelate court similar to the present CJEU; 5) to change the selection process of the CJEU to ensure that euro-enthusiasts would not dominate the court, but rather experienced judges who decided according to the law, but not according to an agenda of centralisation.

A lively discussion followed Gissurarson’s presentation. The audience was particularly interested in the Nordic tradition of liberty under the law which could be traced all the way back to the Germanic tribes described by Roman chronicler Tacitus two thousand years ago. Gissurarson pointed out that it would be an anachronism to call Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson a liberal, but that nevertheless many liberal ideas were found in his works: government by consent, the right of rebellion, respect for private property, and the advantages of trade. At the Mont Pelerin Society meeting, Gissurarson also intervened in a discussion after a lecture by Professor Eduardo Nolla about the concept of America where it was mentioned that the Icelanders had discovered America almost 500 years before Columbus. As Gissurarson recalled, Oscar Wilde had quipped that the Icelanders had discovered America but that they had the good sense to lose it again. Gissurarson also reminded the audience of German philosopher Lichtenberg’s comment: The American who first discovered Columbus, made a bad discovery. These witticisms did not however change the fact, Gissurarson added, that America and Europe should unite in the protection of liberty under the law.

The Mont Pelerin Society conference was ably organised by Bertha Pantoja and Roberto Salinas. The speakers included Lebanese-American writer Nassim Taleb, Peruvian lawyer Enrique Ghersi, Lord Hannan of Highclere, and Professors Thomas Hazlett, Randall Holcombe, Deirdre McCloskey and George Selgin.

Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, gave a talk at a family congress of ECR, European Conservatives and Reformists, in Dubrovnik in Croatia on 18 October 2024. He recalled the contrast which Aristotle had in his Rhetoric drawn between  youth and old age, where the young were motivated by hope and the old by memories. Youth made innovations, tried to carry out their dreams, whereas old age ensured foreseeability, continuity and stability. Gissurarson observed that not only had the relative number of the old increased in the West with the great increase in life expectancy, but that the old tended to be more active in politics, for example as voters. It was wrong however to view them as a burden on the young. They could contribute much, both as producers and consumers. They could be participants, not only onlookers.

Mateusz Morawiecki speaking.

Gissurarson also discussed the theoretical arguments for the family. It was a more efficient consumption unit than the individual and was also a venue for the division of labour between the sexes. Moreover, the family added a time horizon to life in two ways. First, it reached out to the past by parents bringing up their children and teaching them the rules and virtues necessary to survive and succeed, such as diligence, punctuality, politeness, hygiene and so on. Secondly, the family reached out to the future by parents seeking to leave material goods to their children, facilitate their lives. Keynes had said, flippantly, that in the long run ‘we’ would all be dead, but Gissurarson observed that in the long run the children would be alive. First and foremost, however, the family helped individuals to find a meaning in life, a purpose, a sense of belonging. It was crucial that individuals could relate to others, form personal attachments, and the family was the most important such group, while other groups also played a role, such as congregations, private schools, sports clubs, political parties, and all kinds of spontaneous associations and collectives, and last but not least the nation, with its rich and meaningful heritage. Such groups were placed between the individual with his or her right to choose and the state with its monopoly of force. Gissurarson mentioned that in a forthcoming book he was discussing the ideas of the Danish poet, preacher, and politician Nikolaj F. S. Grundtvig who had been a national liberal and eloquently articulated Danish, and Nordic, national identity.

Other speakers at the conference included Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s former Prime Minister, Eugenia Roccella, Italian Minister of Family Affairs and Equality, and Ante Šušnjar, Croatian Minister of Economic Affairs, in addition to many members of the European Parliament and of the parliaments of various European countries. The programme of the congress included two excursions, touring the wine district of Konavle south of Dubrovnik, tasting its local wines, and sailing on the Adriatic Sea in a Karaka (depicted below), a replica of the traditional ships built during the Dubrovnik (Ragusa) Republic of 1358–1808.

Ely Lassman, an economist from Israel working in the United Kingdom, and the founder and chairman of Prometheus on Campus, gave a talk in Reykjavik on 14 October 2024 on ‘Israel, the Arab Countries, and the West’. The event had to be by invitation only because of the aggression shown recently at many events in Iceland by militant supporters of Hamas and Hesbollah, the two terrorist organisations trying to destroy Israel. The talk was at the National Museum at lunchtime, and was chaired by Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Iceland. Lassman served in the IDF, the Israeli Defence Force, and shared many insights with the audience about life as an Israeli citizen and soldier. He recalled that in 1947 the United Nations proposed the division of the British Mandate of Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the proposal, but the Arabs rejected it and started fighting against the Jews, aided by several Arab states that attacked Israel upon her declaration of independence in May 1948. While Israel managed to repel the attack, two areas mainly populated by Arabs, Gaza and the West Bank, were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively. Then, after her victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied those two areas.

In 2005, the IDF left Gaza in an attempt to make peace with the Palestinian Arabs, and the Israelis who lived there also had to leave. But Hamas seized power and systematically destroyed all the infrastructure left behind in Gaza, because it was Jewish-made. Hamas openly declared its aim as being to kill all Jews in Israel. Therefore, although the invasion of Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023 was a serious security lapse, it was not surprising in itself, nor the fact that it was conducted in a barbaric way, as documented by the Hamas combatants themselves. Both Hamas and Hesbollah relied on a certain interpretation of Islam. They were thus motivated by ideas. What these terrorists and Western socialists had in common was hostility towards Western civilisation, the idea of diversity, prosperity, choice, and individual flourishing. Israel was the only Western country in the Middle East, Lassman said.

The meeting was well attended, and a lively discussion followed Lassman’s talk. He was asked about public opinion in Israel on the war. He replied that the Israelis were united in their will to defend themselves and to respond to the savage attack on 7 October 2023. But people saw different objectives in the war. The right wanted completely to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, whereas the priority of the left was to liberate the hostages Hamas was still holding. Lassman was also asked why not only the extreme but also the moderate left in the West was siding with the Arabs in Palestine. He replied that leftists tended always to side with the weak in any conflict. It seemed not to matter to them whether the cause of the weak was just or not. Israel had been rather weak for the first decades of her existence and her survival had by no means been certain. Then many leftists had been in sympathy with her. But when Israel became a strong power, defeating the Arab countries in one war after another, leftists had turned against her—not because her cause had become unjust, but because now she was considered to be the more powerful combatant and the Arabs in her territory to be the weaker one.

Students for Liberty Europe, Nordic Students for Liberty, RSE, the Icelandic Research Centre for Social and Economic Affairs, and two student associations on entrepreneurship and innovation at Reykjavik University and the University of Iceland, respectively, held a very successful conference at Reykjavik University Saturday 12 October 2024, between 14 and 18. The theme of the conference was ‘Markets and Entrepreneurship’. The former Olympic champion Anton Sveinn McKee, now Chairman of the Youth Organisation of the Centre Party, was Master of Ceremonies. He welcomed Aslaug Arna Sigurbjornsdottir, Member of Parliament for the Independence Party and Minister of Industry, Universities, and Innovation. She delivered some opening remarks about the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in an ever-changing world where knowledge seemed to double every day.

The first session was about ‘Challenges to Freedom’. It was chaired by Dilja Mist Einarsdottir, Member of Parliament for the Independence Party. Tahmineh Dehbozorgi gave a moving account of the contrast between her life until she was seventeen in Iran under the iron rule of the mullahs, and now in the United States where she studied law, first in Los Angeles and then in Washington DC. She emphasised that freedom could be lost gradually. We should always ask ourselves when confronted with a measure where it would logically lead in the end. Dr. Kristian Nimietz of the IEA, Institute of Economic Affairs in London, cogently presented the evidence that neither colonialism nor slavery could explain the prosperity of the West. Many colonies made a net loss, and the trade in slavery was only a fraction of total trade from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Claims made by the proponents of the recent woke movements about the evils of capitalism were therefore not based on facts.

The second session was about the ‘Promises of Freedom’. It was chaired by popular podcaster Frosti Logason. Ragnar Arnason, Professor Emeritus in Resource Economics at the University of Iceland and an internationally acknowledged expert on fisheries economics, clearly and concisely described ‘Free Market Environmentalism’, a school of thought which began with a 1991 book of the same name by Donald Leal and Terry Anderson. The basis premise of this school of thought is that the definition of private property rights was essential to ensure the efficient utilisation of natural resources. Pollution, for example, was usually because nobody owned and guarded that which was being polluted, such as rivers or lakes. Ely Lassman, the Chairman and Founder of Prometheus on Campus, discussed in an illuminating way the concept of capitalism, as found in writings by its supporters on the one hand and its opponents, such as Noam Chomsky, on the other hand. The truth of the matter was that what was often called capitalism was basically the right of individuals to choose for themselves. It was not based on utility, as some of its supporters had argued, but on individual rights, grounded in human rationality. The defence of capitalism had to be moral, Lassman submitted.

The third session was about ‘Young People and Entrepreneurship’. It was chaired by Haukur Ingi S. Jonsson, a second-year student of financial engineering at Reykjavik University and Chairman of Sproti, the student assocation at the University for innovation and entrepreneurship. The 23-year-old Swedish entrepreneur Ida Johansson impressed the audience with her description of how she five years ago prepared and developed a company, Hyred, which assisted companies in recruiting  the right kind of employees. Singled out in 2022 by Fortune as one of eight up-and-coming entrepreneurs, she recently sold the company and is devoting her time to research and investments. Lovro and Marin Lesic, 20-year-old twin brothers, investors and entrepreneurs from Croatia, gave a lively account of what they have already learned from failures and successes of their various projects: 1) It’s never too early to start. 2) Success can’t be achieved without continuous learning. 3) Early failues fuel future successes.

Dr. Birgir Thor Runolfsson, Chairman of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Iceland, made some concluding remarks, whereupon Anton Sveinn McKee invited the participants to a reception and dinner in the nearby Ceres Room at Bragginn, with a great view of Reykjavik and Kopavogur, the next town. At the dinner, Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, proposed a toast to the two sponsors of the dinner, Prometheus Foundation and the Icelandic whaling company Hvalur. The restaurant Thrir Frakkar had prepared delicious whalemeat dishes which the participants enjoyed. Gissurarson pointed out that the two whale stocks harvested in the Icelandic waters, the Minke Whale and the Fin Whale, were both plentiful and far from being in any danger of extinction.

Before the conference, on Friday 11 October, Gissurarson had published an article about the theme of the conference and the contributions of some of the speakers:

On 12 October, the only remaining daily in Iceland, Morgunbladid, published an interview with Tahmineh Dehbozorgi about the Iranian dissident movement and life in the United States:

The conference was jointly organised by Breki Atlason, the Students for Liberty representative in Iceland, and Haukur Ingi S. Jonsson. They were ably assisted by Students for Liberty veterans Halla Margret Hilmarsdottir, Lukas Schweiger and Magnus Orn Gunnarsson, and by Viktor Levi Andrason, Gunnar Snaer Mogensen and others. Professor Gissurarson invited the foreign speakers and the domestic organisers to a barbecue at his home the night before the conference.

Speakers and organisers, from left: Haukur Ingi S. Jonsson, Ely Lassman, Marin Lesic, Ida Johansson, Kristian Niemietz, Tahmineh Dehbozorgi, Lovro Lesic, Ragnar Arnason, Breki Atlason and Sveinn Anton McKee. Photo: Viktor L. Andrason.

In Frosti’s studio there is a portrait of Gissurarson’s friend David Oddsson.

Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, was a guest in Frosti Logason’s podcast on 19 September 2024. He said that recent elections in European countries suggested that a lot of voters who had voted for traditional centre-right parties were now voting for more populist right-wing parties. They refused to accept 1) the unlimited immigration of people from Muslim countries if and when those immigrants rejected Western values; 2) centralisation, the transfer of power from the European nation states to the Brussels bureaucracy; 3) the dominance that intolerant left-wing intellectuals had acquired over mainstream media and the universities, using it to promote wokeism and cancel culture; 4) the extension of free trade to mainland China if and when her communist rulers did not observe the rules of a fair game. European voters were rebelling against the dominant elites. Gissurarson said that the war in Ukraine should be resolved by a ceasefire, followed by free and fair elections in contested regions about whether the inhabitants wanted to belong to Ukraine or Russia, just like the elections in 1920 in Schleswig about whether the inhabitants wanted to belong to Denmark or Germany. The resolution of the conflict in the Middle East was not two states, but rather one sovereign country, Israel, which would however grant communes (or cantons) of Palestinian Arabs within her borders extensive self-government, just like Finland after 1917 granted the Aaland Islands self-government while retaining sovereignty. On the issue of Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers in Europe a distinction had to be made, Gissurarson submitted, between those who were already citizens in a European country and those who were not. Of course, under the rule of law all citizens should enjoy equal rights irrespective of their religion. But if some citizens rejected Western values and became a nuisance and even a threat without violating the law in such a way that they could be deprived of their citizenship, then perhaps they could be paid to stay away, in countries that would have them.

The summer of 2022 saw the publication of the book Superabundance; the Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet by Dr. Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute in Washington DC and Professor Gale Pooley. They present two main theses: 1) Population increase is not bound to be a problem because in a free economy each individual would tend to produce more than he would consume. Natural resources are by no means dwindling. 2) There has been much more progress than is reflected in the usual measurements of economic growth. What is most relevant is the time price of goods, not their money price, where time price maeans the time it takes to work for the goods.

The first thesis is amply confirmed by experience. The dire predictions in The Limits to Growth and A Blueprint for Survival which both were published in Iceland in 1973 turned out to be wrong. Food production has increased at a greater rate than the population. Natural resources have not been dwindling, for two reasons, that new resources have been discovered and that old resources are utilised more efficiently. For example, if a machine is invented that uses only half the energy of its predecessor, then it means that the energy reserves for this kind of production has doubled in size. It is also easy to argue for the second thesis. If a loaf of bread costs 200 Icelandic kronur while its consumer earns 2,000 kronur per hour, then its time price is six minutes. But if the price of the loaf increases to 220 kronur while its consumer earns 2,400 kronur per hour, then the time price has fallen to five minutes and 24 seconds. A good example of astonishing progress which is not well reflected in ordinary statistics is the price of light. In 1800, it cost 5.37 hours for a common worker to buy one hour of light. Now it costs less than 0.18 seconds.

Marian Tupy visited Iceland in July 2024 and gave a talk at the University of Iceland on 24 July, with Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University, chairing. After his talk, Tupy responded to questions. One question was whether man had really seen moral progress in the twentieth century, given its horrors, Nazi extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Stalinist and Maoist slave camps such as Karaganda. Tupy agreed that certainly there was still much evil in the world, but he pointed out that acts of evil had to be evaluated relative to the population, and then they probably turned out to be less prevalent than in the more distant past.