Liberalism in Iceland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Discuss this article at Journaltalk: http://journaltalk.net/articles/5945 ECON JOURNAL WATCH 14(2) May 2017: 241–273 Liberalism in Iceland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Hannes H. Gissurarson1 LINK TO ABSTRACT Iceland is a remote country with a tiny population, so a sophisticated Ice- landic liberal tradition is hardly to be expected.2 Nevertheless, Icelanders have developed two remarkable and original institutions facilitating individual choice and responsibility: the system of private enforcement of law during the Common- wealth period of 930–12623 and the system of individual transferable quotas in offshore fisheries since the late twentieth century. A few liberal intellectuals have also been active in public debate, first and foremost the leader of Iceland’s struggle for independence, economic historian Jon Sigurdsson (1811–1883), but also the authors of the first three books in Icelandic on economics, pastor Arnljotur Olafsson (1823–1904), civil engineer Jon Thorlaksson (1877–1935), and econo- mist Benjamin Eiriksson (1910–2000), and some more recent writers, including economics professors Olafur Bjornsson (1912–1999) and Ragnar Arnason (b. 1949), and the present author (b. 1953). Moreover, comprehensive liberal reforms were implemented in Iceland in 1991–2004, with remarkable success, even if the 1. University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland. An earlier version of this paper formed a part of the author’s 2016 report for the think tank New Direction in Brussels on “The Nordic Models.” 2. In this paper, liberalism is used in the original political sense, as a political position in favour of individual choice and limited government, shared, despite many differences, by John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lord Acton, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick.
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