Gissurarson: Power to the People

Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, was a guest at Gisli Freyr Valdorsson’s podcast on 2 July 2024, discussing many current issues. He found it strange that the welfare state was growing at the same time as the need for it was diminishing, as people were getting more prosperous, more able to support themselves and pay for what they wanted. He was not worried about an increase in population because each additional individual could produce more than he would consume if he or she was allowed freely to use their skills and abilities to their own advantage. The only effective foreign aid was free trade, Gissurarson submitted, the opportunity of Western companies to invest in the developing world and the access of companies in the developing world to Western markets. Ecofundamentalists, or extreme environmentalists, did not realise that environmental protection required designated protectors, owners of resources with an interest in conserving them and improving upon them. Gissurarson suggested that the Icelandic bank collapse in 2008 had resulted in a massive transfer of power from the elected representatives of the people to bureaucrats and regulators. It was time to transfer this power, not to government, but to the people. He recalled that two political leaders, Bjarni Benediktsson and Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, had had astonishing success in their dealings with the foreign creditors of the fallen Icelandic banks, who had had to return a significant part of their gains, to the Icelandic state.