Hannes speaking and Sverrir Jakobsson listening. Photo: Haraldur Bernhardsson.

The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies (Midaldastofa) held a seminar 2 December 2021 on a theory, presented in Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson’s recent book, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers. It is that Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson could be seen as an early proponent of the conservative-liberal tradition in politics. Snorri (1179–1241) is probably the most famous Icelander who has ever lived, 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. Professor Sverrir Jakobsson commented on Gissurarson’s paper.

Gissurarson Slides (Icelandic) Reykjavik 2 December 2021

Accounts of the discussion were published in Morgunbladid on 4 December 2021 and on visir.is on 5 December.

The Nordic participants: Lars-Peder Nordbakken from Norway, Gissurarson and Nils Karlson from Sweden.

RNH Academic Director, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, attended the special meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Guatemala City on 14–18 November 2021. The theme of the meeting was ‘Rising from the Crisis: Advancing the Future of the Free Society’. It was hosted by Universidad Francisco Marroquín which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. The University was founded by businessman and entrepreneur Manuel Ayau in 1971. Ayau, a leading member of the Mont Pelerin Society, was its President in 1978–1980. Some of the topics of individual sessions at the MPS meeting in Guatemala were: Is Freedom a Victim of or the Solution to a Pandemic? Is There a War Between Intellectuals and Capitalism? and: What Has Government Done to Your Money? MPS President Linda Whetstone gave a luncheon talk at the special meeting where she recalled that the Society was founded in 1947 by Friedrich von Hayek as an international academy of classical liberal scholars and men of affairs. In a special session set aside for MPS members to present their work, Gissurarson talked about his recent book in two volumes, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers, published by New Direction in Brussels. Many of the thinkers discussed in the book were MPS members: Ludwig von Mises, Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke, Karl R. Popper, Bertrand de Jouvenel, Milton Friedman, and James M. Buchanan. The audience found of particular interest the photographs Gissurarson showed from past MPS meetings. The next MPS meeting will be in Oslo on 4–8 October 2022.

The closing dinner. From left: Terry Anker, Richard Bolton, Lord Borwick, Leonidas Zelmanovitz, Prof. Benjamin Powell, Prof. Hannes Gissurarson, Dr. Yaron Brook, Prof. Eduardo Mayora, Caroline Mühlfenzl, Dr. Nils Karlson.

Gissurarson Slides Guatemala 15 November 2021

From Gissurarson’s slides: The MPS 50th anniversary meeting in March 1997. James Buchanan and Rose and Milton Friedman in front row.

Marek Mutor, President of the Platform.

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience held its annual Council of Members on 11–13 November 2021 in Prague, alongside an international conference on the year 1991 in retrospect. The keynote paper at the conference was delivered by Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, RNH Academic Director, who argued that the failure of the Russian Revolution was not because the wrong people had made it, but because the Marxist project was unrealistic and therefore bound to fail. The reason was that without a capital market there was no way of making rational decisions about the utilisation of capital goods. The heroic Prometheus seizing fire from the gods, in Marxist mythology, therefore inevitably turned into the vicious Procrustes trying to force all his guests to fit in the same bed. Gissurarson 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. Prime Minister David Oddsson of Iceland, long a firm anti-communist, used the occasion to resume diplomatic relations with the Baltic countries. Gissurarson 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 coup attempt indeed showed.

At the meeting in Prague Marek Mutor, Director of the Remembrance and Future Centre in Wroclaw, Poland, was elected President of the Platform, and five organisations were admitted as full members: the Twentieth Century Memorial Museum (Czech Republic), the Georgian National Museum, the Jože Pučnik Institute (Slovenia), the UIPN State Archive (Ukraine), and the Museum of Communist Terror (United Kingdom). The Platform was the official partner of a film festival in Prague on twentieth century totalitarianism in Europe, held at the same time as the conference. Peter Rendek is the Managing Director of the Platform which has its main office in Prague. The Executive Board of the Platform has six members, Dr. Andreja Valič Zver from Slovenia, Toomas Hiio from Estonia, Dr. Wolfgang-Christian Fuchs from Germany, Professor Antoine Arjakovsky from France, Zsolt Szilágyi from Romania and Dr. Paweł Ukielski from Poland. The Board of Trustees includes Professor Stéphane Courtois and former MEP Tunne Kelam (who have both spoken at RNH events), former Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša.

Gissurarson Slides in Prague 12 November 2021

In a paper which Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson read to a meeting of the Danube Institute in Budapest 10 November 2021, he argued that Margaret Thatcher, Leader of the Conservative Party in 1975–1990 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979–1990, was a conservative liberal, or what some (mainly left-wing) scholars call a neoliberal. Thatcherism meant support for the free market, but also for a strong state, albeit a limited one. Thatcher was not bent on imposing an abstract model on British society: she was rather trying to remove barriers to the spontaneous development of the economy, including breaking up monopolies, not only in heavy industry, but also on the labour market. To reinforce his argument, Gissurarson quoted Edmund Burke, regarded by many conservatives as their founding father: ‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risque the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve.’ What Thatcher did, Gissurarson said, was to reform in order to preserve. She wanted to defend the traditional liberties of the British people, gradually eroded for almost a century. For this she needed a strong state which was able to protect those liberties against militant monopolists such as Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Miners and against foreign aggressors such as Leopoldo Galtieri of the military junta in Argentina. But Thatcher not only won the Falklands War, but also, with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, the Cold War. She was, Gissurarson submitted, a world-historical figure in Hegel’s sense. The meeting was chaired by John O’Sullivan, a friend of and a speechwriter for Thatcher during her tenure as Prime Minister. A lively discussion followed Gissurarson’s lecture.

Gissurarson Slides on Thatcherism 10 November 2021

From left: John O’Sullivan, Gissurarson, Ferenc Hörcher and David L. Dusenbury.

RNH Academic Director Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson presented his recent book in two volumes, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers, on 8 November 2021 in Budapest, at a seminar organised by the Danube Institute, led by John O’Sullivan. In his introductory talk, Gissurarson said that he regarded 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 negative 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 Friedrich von Hayek cogently argued.

Gissurarson said that perhaps Hayek was the most distinguished modern representative of the 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 rules enabling different individuals to live peacefully together.

Professor Ferenc Hörcher and Dr. David L. Dusenbury commented on Gissurarson’s presentation. They both criticised it from a conservative point of view, although they supported the suggestion that conservatives and liberals should stand united against socialism. It seemed to Hörcher that Gissurarson 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, Gissurarson 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, Gissurarson conceded, that commercial society destroyed or at least challenged some traditional communities, but at the same time it facilitated the formation 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, for example New York City, there are many active communities, spontaneously formed, although not always visible at first sight.

Gissurarson Slides Budapest 8 November 2021

At the Austrian Economics Conference in Vienna 4–5 November 2021 it was announced that this year the Hayek Institute in Vienna, led by Dr. Barbara Kolm, was giving the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award to Professor Veselin Vukotić, Rector of the University of Donja Gorica in Montenegro, ‘for his tireless efforts and being a pioneer in promoting Austrian Economics during transition, his advancement of economic understanding and for raising the general level of economic education in Montenegro, the Balkans, and abroad’. Previous recipients of the Award include Professors Niall Ferguson, Deirdre McCloskey, and Arthur B. Laffer, the Nobel Laureate in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, and entrepreneur Peter Thiel. It was Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, RNH Academic Director, who gave the Laudatio for Professor Vucotić, while the Award was presented to him by Dr. Robert Holzmann, Governor of the Austrian National Bank.

At dinner in honour of Prof. Vucotić. From left: Barbara Kolm, Ferdinand Wenzel, Richard Bolton, Gissurarson, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, and Steven Heinz.