The lesser chieftains and small landholders were faced with a choice: To swear allegiance to the superior authority of the emerging monarchy (and accept the royal prerogative of taxation) or to run for their lives. They opted for the latter choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Since those days, more than 30 generations of my countrymen have been brought up with the historical myth (or truth) that our ancestors would rather risk their lives than lose their liberty. Searching for Ultima Thule<\/i> \u2013 the faraway island, out there in the North Atlantic \u2013 was at best a hazardous undertaking. The dream of those asylum seekers was to find a mythological utopia, in the middle of nowhere, where they could settle in a land of liberty. They called it Island, the original meaning of which was the island of God. Due to linguistic deficiences of British cartographers later on, they misnamed it Iceland on the maps. Since then the inhabitants have thought of it as the land of fire and ice.<\/p>\n
Being settlers in a virgin country, land was free for the taking. Sparsly populated, in a fairly large territory, the settlers\u00b4 conditions were not conducive to a system of slavery, which was therefore abolished early on. What emerged was a community of independent landowners, who were determined not to accept any superior authority of the kind they had escaped from in their homelands.<\/p>\n
In this sense those adventurers were fiercely individualistic<\/i>. On the other hand they can also be described as egalitarian<\/i> in outlook, since they considered themselves to be equals, rather than being subservient to a higher authority. This certainly was a \u201cWild West\u201d \u2013 a libertarian dream come true. One of the first written references to this phenomenon in European scholarship is to be found in the 11th C Annals by Adam Bede, the bishop of Bremen, who observed that the inhabitants of this remote island were unique in one respect, namely \u201cthat they accepted no king over themselves<\/i>\u201d. This must have been some news to the bishop\u00b4s European contemporaries, increasingly being subjected to feudal overlordship under heriditary aristocracy.<\/p>\n2.<\/h2>\n
In the context of medieval European history, this was indeed a unique social experiment. It was an attempt to create a society of free men and women, under common law, but without any executive power whatsoever. There was no government, no bureaucracy, no army, no police and no coercive central power to maintain Law and Order among an unruly populace. If this is not an anarchist dream come true, I don\u00b4t know what is.<\/p>\n
And, by the way: women\u00b4s rights were advanced way beyond anything deemed proper in Europe at the time. Among the early settlers there were well known and highly respected matriarchs. Not only could women assert their rights to landownership; their right to divorce their men was recognized and they could legally claim half of the couple\u00b4s common property in the case of divorce. That must also have been some news to the Bishop of Bremen, had he only known!<\/p>\n
The centerpiece of this social structure was AL\u00deINGI (parliament \u2013 meaning all the people). Al\u00feingi was both, a legislative assembly and a court of law, at the same time. It was held annually at \u00deINGVELLIR for three weeks in the month of August (an idea which has sometimes been recommended as a good example for modern parliaments to imitate). But Al\u00feingi was also a sort of national forum, not only for the affairs of state, but also for commerce, culture, sport and fashion \u2013 not to forget marriage counselling and match-making.<\/p>\n
Although Al\u00feingi was not an elected assembly, in line with our modern practice, it was nonetheless a surprisingly democratic institution. The members were local chieftains from the regions, surrounded by their closest councellors. They were selected locally, presumably either for their influence or alleged wisdom. Although loyalty to the chief was considered a virtue, chieftains could be deposed (and were actually recalled on occasion), so the influence of common farmers was considerable.<\/p>\n
Althingi elected a Speaker for a fixed term in office, from among knowledgable legal scholars, who also presided over the court proceedings. Before the Law was written down (the oldest law book dates from the year 1117), the Speaker recited the bulk of the law during Althingi\u00b4s session, for the edification of the younger generations. In this sense, Althingi was also an academy, surely one of the oldest law departments in the world.<\/p>\n
Do we find anything of relevance for our times in this old story? Perhaps it depends on your basic Weltanschauung<\/i>, on your priorities and fundamental values: Where do you think the demarcation line lies between individual freedom<\/i> and social responsibility<\/i>; what is the role of the so-called free markets<\/i> versus the democratic state<\/i>; or how do we deal with the ultimate conflict between unrestrained economic growth<\/i> and our finite environmet<\/i>. As a matter of fact all of those elements of our contemporary debate are to be found in this old story, if only we look hard enough. Even phenoma like overgrazing and soil erosion were already well known problems in those days.<\/p>\n3.<\/h2>\n
Some of the most ardent neo-conservative advocates of today, of free markets and the minimum state, are known to be fascinated by the legend of the old, Icelandic settlers\u00b4 republic. One of them, Mr. David Freedman<\/b> (son of Milton<\/b>, the Nobel-prize winning prophet of the Chicago School) has even written a book about it. For his own good he chooses to emphasize the virtues of a society of free individuals under the law with limited government \u2013 or better still, as in this case \u2013 no government at all!<\/p>\n
Others, of a more egalitarian disposition, have chosen to emphasize different aspects of this story, i.e. the egalitarian nature of this society in its early stages, while it seems to have been a balanced and relatively successful society. In the ancient law we find well defined clauses obliging the land-owning class to pay a tithe of their income to provide for widows, orphans and the disabled, as a means of social insurance. There are also to be found stringent restrictions on individual ownership rights when it comes to the utilisation of common pastures, fishing rights, etc. And in its hayday there is ample evidence to show that ordinary citizens considered themselves to be equal under the law, even against vested interests of powerful families.<\/p>\n
But primarily, latter-day social-democrats like to point out, that in the end growing INEQUALITY of wealth \u2013 and with it political power \u2013 spelled the doom of this free and rather egalitarian social experiment. Gradually, land-ownership (the main asset of an agrarian society) became concentrated in the hands of a few leading families or clans (often in alliance with the church, after the adoption by law of Christianity in the year 1000 A.D.) Those dominant clans in the end grew so powerful, that they could with impunity place themselves above the law<\/i>. In the early half of the 13th C their internal power struggle broke out in a bloody civil war. Ultimately the Norwegian king intervened in order to restore \u201cLaw and Order\u201d. But the exhausted combatants had to pay a heavy prize for the imposed restoration of peace and stability: Althingi had to swear allegiance to the Norwegian crown and to submit to its power of taxation.<\/p>\n
History had come full circle. Liberty was crushed \u2013 after it had been disconnected from social responsibility. Individual freedom could not be maintained in the long run without the restraining power of a (democratic) state. Liberty for all could not be secured without the stakeholders being empowered by equal rights under the law, to restrain the inherent tendencies for dominance and subjugation of the many \u2013 by the few. Ultimately inequality destroyed the dream of liberty and solidarity<\/b>. That is the lesson of this story<\/i>. <\/i><\/p>\n
Incidentally, it took my countrymen approximately seven hundred years to make up for their fatal mistakes, regaining independence only in the early 20ieth C.<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/i><\/p>\n4.<\/h2>\n
There is a striking resemblance between the old Icelandic republic and the settlers\u00b4 society in North America, which emerged several centuries later, after massive migrations, mainly from Europe, to what was called the promised land.<\/p>\n
In both cases people were fleeing class-ridden and authoritarian societies, dominated by heriditary aristocracy and smitten by religious intolerance. They were seeking new opportunities for material and social advancement. In both cases people were ready to take risks and accept physical hardship in their search for freedom, hoping to build a more equal and just society<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In both cases there was plenty of land to be had for the taking. But there were major differences as well. America was not a virgin country. The indigenious population had to be exterminated or pushed to the margins, to make space for the incoming settlers. And slavery became entrenched in the South as the basis of an exploitative plantation economy. It took a bloody civil war to start the emancipation of the slaves, which was not fully realized until in the latter half of the last century by the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n
America became a very violent society, presumably a heritage from the unruly days of the Wild West. The right to bear arms is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Americans tend to be, to this very day, suspicious \u2013 even hostile to any government interference with their lives, even of a benign kind, such as securing health insurance for every citizen. Despite huge fiscal and trade deficits and trillions of dollars in public debt, many refuse to pay more taxes, witness the Tea Party-movement of today. And the biggest small arms arsenal in the world is not to be found in the hands of 3rd world dictators \u2013 but under the bed in American homes!<\/p>\n
In both cases the societies that emerged were fiercely individualistic in outlook, but at the same time more equal than the hereditary aristocracies of Europe. America was to be the land of opportunity for the poor and excluced. This is the defining characteristic of the American dream. Work hard and play by the rules and you can become rich.<\/p>\n
The Icelandic experiment with a society, based on the libertarian dream of freedom from the coercive powers of the state, lasted for 330 years.Towards the end it was steadily undermined by the disruptive force of growing inequality, which led to social disintegration, civil war and ultimate ruin.<\/p>\n
The American experiment has by now lasted 235 years. Although still a magnet for hoards of poor immigrants, mainly from the failed states of Central America, American society has by now become the most unequal society among the highly developed countries. In the last 30 years, inequality has reached such an extreme dimension, that it begs the question: Has freedom become a privilege of the few \u2013 to the exclusion of the many?<\/p>\n
Let us have a look at some facts:<\/p>\n
In a special report on the rich and the rest of us (Jan. 2011), the Economist presented some alarming statistics about the steadily growing inequality, within societies and between the rich countries and the rest of the world. In America e.g., in the year 2010, the top 1% of taxpayers received 23.5% of all pre-tax income, twice as much as 20 years before. The bottom half\u00b4s share fell from 15.6% to 12.2%.<\/p>\n
The magazine quoted a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington D.C., which looked at the ratio of the average incomes of the rich and the \u201cbottom\u201d 90% of the population, between 1980 and 2006. At the start of the period the top 1% earned 10 times more than the rest \u2013 but 20 times as much in 2006. But for the super rich \u2013 the top 0.1%, the gain rose from 20 times the earnings of the lower 90% to almost 80 times<\/i> more than the rest. At the same time, wages of the middle \u2013 and lower \u2013 classes have been stagnating, due to the combined effect of technological change, globalization and decline of trade union power.<\/p>\n
Then the magazine gives a more graphic picture of what inequality looks like in the land of the American dream, and I quote:<\/p>\n
\u201cJan Pen, a Dutch economist who died last year, came up with a striking way to picture inequality. Imagine people\u00b4s hight being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average hight. Now imagine that the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour<\/i>, in ascending order of income.<\/p>\n
The first passers by, the owners of loss-making businesses are invisible; their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour<\/i> the strollers are still only waist-high… It takes nearly 45 minutes<\/i> before normal sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes giants thunder by. With 6 minutes to go they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by (the Fortune 500 billionnaires), right at the end, each is more than 2 miles tall\u201d.<\/p>\n
This is not exactly a family photo of the land of equal opportunity or level playing fields, is it?<\/p>\n
It is remarkable that the father of Bill Gates<\/b>, the second richest man in the world, and Warren Buffet<\/b>, the sage of Omaha and the third richest man in the world, have joined hands in a fight to have inheritance tax restored in the U.S. (It was abolished in the Bush years). They say they don\u00b4t want to have America deformed into \u201can entrenched plutocracy, where the super-rich simply own the place\u201d. Even the old and class-ridden hereditary aristocracies of Europe have by now become more equal societies than the promised land of the American dream.<\/p>\n
And what about the rest of the world?<\/b> According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report for 2010 \u2013 and the Suisse should know \u2013 the outstanding figures are the following.<\/p>\n At the apex of the pyramid there are the truly super-rich \u2013 80.000 adults, or so in all \u2013 who can be said to own or control the vast majority of the earth\u00b4s wealth. They are an exclusive club. Although most of them are Americans (40%), they are truly an international jet-set. Among them are a few innovative pioneers who have contributed a lot to human progress. Many are barons of the world of high finance. Many are the bankers, who are now being bailed out by trillions of tax-payers\u00b4 money, to pay the debts they have left behind.<\/p>\n Some of them are shadowy figures from the underworld of international crime. Then there are quite a few tin-pot dictators from the third world, who have taken liberties with the treasuries of their destitute nations. Then there are quite a few who are the inheritors of great fortunes, handed down to them by their ancestors.<\/p>\n This spectacular inequality has been growing at a dizzying pace for the past 30 years. \u201cThe past decade has been specially conducive to the establishment and preservation of large fortunes\u201d, as Credit Suisse puts it.<\/p>\n Why has inequality reached such extreme proportions in the last few decades? Well, after a few hundred years experience of laissez-faire<\/i> capitalism \u2013 the free market system \u2013 we can hardly pretend to be surprised. The internal logic of a competitive market system is to reward the successful. This means an inherent tendency towards the concentration of wealth into the hands of the few. In the previous century the popular reaction against the polarization of society between the rich and privileged few on one side, and the toiling masses on the other, sometimes led to a revolution. Within the democracies, however, the political power of the state was harnessed to counteract those tendencies, through various redistributive policies. Witness Roosevelt\u00b4s<\/b> New Deal in Amer\u00edca, after the failure of the free market system had led to an economic break-down and massive unemployment, worldwide.<\/p>\n And the Nordic model \u2013 the social-democratic third way between laissez-faire <\/i>capitalism and etatism<\/i> (the nationalization of the means of production) \u2013 can be traced to the same roots. Nordic social-democrats didn\u00b4t abolish the market, but put it under social control. Tage Erlander<\/b>, the long serving Swedish PM, used to say that the market was a useful servant but an abominable master. And the Swedes used the power of the state, through democratic action, to achieve a more egalitarian outcome than the markets would allow.<\/p>\n The tools for the job were mainly progressive taxation, free education and obligatory participation in health insurance and pension funds. The state ( municipalities) provided professional child care to enable women to participate fully in the work force. And the state guaranteed direct transfers to the disabled, who couldn\u00b4t fend for themselves in the labour market. By those means Nordic social-democrats built the most egalitarian societies on earth. Not by abolishing capitalism nor by sacrificing freedom. On the contrary, as Olof Palme<\/b> used to say: By empowering the many through free access to quality education, we are in fact maximizing freedom<\/i>.<\/p>\n In the year 2004 I was asked to give a keynote-speech in Copenhagen at the bi-annual policy-review seminar of the management and research staff of the major institutions of the 5 Nordic welfare states. The title of my speech was: \u201cThe Welfare State and its Enemies<\/i>\u201d \u2013 paraphrasing Popper\u00b4s : The Open Society and its Enemeis\u201d.<\/p>\n In the paper I spelled out in some detail, how the welfare state was being besieged: On the one hand by the international plutocratic elite, who insisted on gaining more freedom from state supervision<\/i> and intervention, which was deemed to hamper maximisation of profits \u2013 and hence economic growth.On the other hand it was being forsaken by those who benefited most from the social security provided by the state. Many had allowed themselves to grow complacent, taking for granted what previous generations had actively fought for.<\/p>\n The thrust of the neo-conservative message, brought to the fore of political debate in the 80s of the last century was, that in the long run everybody stood to gain from unfettered freedom of action of the individual, whose creative powers would be liberated from \u201cthe dead hand\u201d of the self-perpetuating bureaucracy of the \u201cleviathan-state\u201d.They warned against the unforeseen consequences of well-meant, but ill-considered, generosity of politicians, buying votes with other people\u00b4s money, creating \u201cpoverty traps\u201d along the way and draining people\u00b4s natural self-reliance in the over indulgent embrace of the paternalistic state. The battle-cry was \u201cpower to the people\u201d and \u201cdown with the regulatory state\u201d \u2013 They were eminently successful, although the end of the story turned out to be somewhat different from what true believers had bargained for, i.e. higher taxes for the people to bail out the super-rich.<\/p>\n The neo-cons are the advocates of the minimum state. They condemn state intervention into the workings of free markets. They believe in the self-corrective capacity of free markets. They preach privatization of common utilities and public services, the deregulation of markets and abolition, or at least down-grading of supervision by the state. In the name of attracting FDI, nation states were set on a \u201crace to the bottom\u201d with one another in reducing taxes on the rich. All of this was advocated in the name of economic growth and technological innovation. When questioned about the social boon of economic growth, if the benefits accrued mostly to the already rich \u2013 they countered that the investments of the rich would create jobs and with time the generated income would \u201ctriccle down\u201d to the poor. A rising tide would surely lift all boats.<\/p>\n For the past 30 years this has been the dominant ideology and the conventional wisdom of most of those, who rule the world: Governments, the boardrooms of the World Bank and the IMF and multinational corporations, as well as the classrooms of academia, where mainstream economics joined political correctness in spreading the gospel around the world. After the fall of communism in 1991, this mantra was meant to be at the heart of a \u201cnew world order\u201d. To some this was the \u201cend of history\u201d.<\/p>\n During this period, the growth of finance-capital, as opposed to the income generated by the \u201creal economy\u201d has been nothing short of phenomenal. In American parlance it is said that Wall Street took over from Main street. The balance of power has shifted decisively in favour of international capital which respects no borders, against weakened nation states \u2013 and labour. The immense \u201creserve army of the unemployed\u201d (in marxist terminology) of the populous, emerging countries (the BRICs), is asserting strong downward pressure on salaries in the developed countries and weakening workers\u00b4rights at the same time.<\/p>\n Trying to understand the pervasive influence of this \u201cnew world order\u201d \u2013 inspired by the ideology of neo-conservatism and based on a fundamentalist belief in the virtues of free markets \u2013 the case of Iceland<\/i>, my home country, can serve as a good example.<\/p>\n For all intents and purposes Iceland was, until the turn of the century, one of the 5 Nordic welfare states, admittedly less advanced than the other four, but genetically the same. Before the turn of the century a new generation of neo-conservative leaders, many of them with their MBAs from esteemed American universities, overtook the Conservative Party and assumed a leading role in the government of the country. They remained in power for three consecutive terms, until they were ultimately thrown out in a popular uprising, affectionately dubbed the \u201cpots- and \u2013 pans\u201d revolution in early 2009.<\/p>\n Having reached power, those young idealists immediately proceeded with implementing their programme according to the book. They privatized the fish quotas and handed them out for free to favoured companies. This was akin to the acquisition of Russia\u00b4s rich natural resources by a few favoured oligarchs who, through their immense wealth, gained irresistable political power as well. Next on the agenda was the privatization of the banks and all financial institutions. It became a declared government policy to turn Iceland into an international financial center. Due to easy access to cheap credit abroad, based on the solid credit ratings of the country up to then, the banks expanded abroad, until they had reached a size more than ten times Iceland\u00b4s GDP.<\/p>\n This was way beyond anything that could be sustained by the Icelandic economy, its Central Bank or tax payers\u00b4base. When the crunch came, in the years 2006-07, this financial house of cards was obviously not sustainable. Asked for advice, the well known Dutch-British financial expert, Willem Buiter<\/b> stated \u201cthat it was not a question of if \u2013 but only when the system would collapse\u201d. The moment of truth came soon after the fall of Lehmans Brothers. That was the spark that ignited the fire.<\/p>\n The Icelandic people suffered a triple crisis<\/i>. A systemic crash of the entire financial system; an almost 100% devaluation of the currency, doubling the stock of debt almost overnight; and an inflation spurt of more than 20% with concomitant interest rate hikes.The Central Bank was bankrupt. Most companies became technically bankrupt. Unemployment soared. Those with foreign currency-denominated mortgages \u2013 mostly young people \u2013 have been disposessed. Emigration of the young is in full swing. And where do most of them go? Back to Norway, the land we left more than a millennium ago!<\/p>\n This economic crisis also caused a deep political crisis<\/i>. The scope of the international financial fraud, disclosed by professional investigators after the fall, is way beyond the capacity of domestic institutions to deal with. Believe it or not, the bankruptcy of the Icelandic banks is on such a scale, that it makes the list over the ten greatest bankruptcies in financial history. The good news is, that \u2013 unlike Ireland \u2013 it was way beyond the capacity of the Icelandic government to bail out the banks. Foreign creditors \u2013 mainly German banks \u2013 have therefore lost a lot of money. Nonetheless, the ensuing debt burden, carried by Icelandic taxpayers will mean many years of austerity and deep cuts in the basic welfare services of the Icelandic state.<\/p>\n What is the lesson of all of this? It\u00b4s this: Letting loose the disruptive power of unfettered capitalism,without the restraining power of the democratic state, led to a national disaster<\/i>. In other words: The unrestrained freedom of the few, led to severe restrictions of freedom for the many. A man over his head in debt is not free \u2013 is he? This is our story. This is also the experience of many other nations. It will take us, Icelanders, many years to make up for this fatal neo-conservative experiment <\/i>with our society. Hopefully we will find our way back to our former brotherhood of Nordic welfare states, where we belong.<\/p>\n When we contemplate the misery of the multitude of the world\u2019 s poor \u2013 from Haiti to the Himalayas, or from Africa to the Arab world \u2013 most commentators lament the pervasive influence of corruption<\/i> among the world\u2019 s political and business elites. Observing this contagious corruption in high places, many have more or less lost hope in our capacity to eradicate global poverty in this century.<\/p>\n Despite our immense wealth \u2013 admittedly mostly in the hands of the few \u2013 and technological prowess, the eradication of poverty proceeds, at the best, at a snail\u2019s pace. If we exclude the gigantic socio-economic experiment ongoing in China, which has raised at least 400 million people from utter poverty to decent living standards in an amazingly short timespan, we have hardly made any progress at all. And only one of the emerging countries, Brazil, under the shrewd leadership of that old trade unionist, Lula<\/b>, has actually managed to reduce its notorious inequality through his \u201cBolsa\u201d scheme, paying poor parents for enrolling their children into schools at an early age. A splendid example of effective state action against poverty and exclusion.<\/p>\n Why is it that crony capitalism, in conjunction with traditional nepotism and authoritarian or quasi feudal paternalism, is the entrenched system of governance, in many parts of the world?<\/p>\n Money talks. Enormous fortunes in the hands of the few enables the financial elite to vield enormous political power often on a global scale. Money buyes power, or access to power; money buyes airtime or media coverage; money buyes influence over legislation. International conglomerates \u2013 many times more wealthy and more powerful than impoverished nation states \u2013 seek control over the planet\u2019 s natural resources: Oil, gas, other energy resources, precious metals, fertile lands \u2013 and in the future \u2013 pure and drinkable water. Multinationals with a global reach \u2013 more often than not in control of wholesale or retail markets \u2013 usually can make autocratic leaders of poor nations do their bidding \u2013 at the right price.<\/p>\n Why is it, when people are finally driven into desperate revolt against their oppressors, that the first news of the deposed dictators are about freezing their Swiss bank accounts? The wife of one of the North African tyrants had even stolen the Central Bank\u2019 s gold reserves and flown them out of the country with her luggage. Isn\u2019t it revealing, that when the Arab masses at long last rose up in anger and despair against their oppressors \u2013 demanding freedom<\/i> \u2013 the leaders of our Western democracies were caught off guard, not knowing on whose side they were? Who had given the tyrants the arms they used against their people? Or profited from selling arms to them? What was more important, that the tyrants kept the oil flowing or that the people would get their fair share of the wealth generated by the utilization of their natural resources? Had not \u201cour secret services\u201d been in close collaboration with theirs \u2013 although we knew full well about the torture chambers? The power of special interest or the freedom of the people? On whose side are we? Do we stand with the people or their oppressors?<\/p>\n George Soros<\/b>, the Hungarian born financial vizard, who brought the once mighty British pound sterling to its knees in a speculative raid in 1992 \u2013 recently said, that the imminent danger threatening democracy was no longer the totalitarian creeds of communism or fascism; rather it was the danger that our representative democracy would be perverted into an entrenched plutocracy<\/i>, thus in fact disenfranchising the people and turning our democracy into a sort of virtual reality \u2013 without real power.<\/p>\n A well known economics professor, Dr. Vivek H. Dehejia<\/b>, also a research fellow at CESifo in M\u00fcnich, puts it this way:<\/p>\n \u201cExcessive corruption and inequality, by corroding the political process, threaten to delegitimize capitalism<\/i> and the market system. This creates pressure for reform and the redistribution of wealth. This tempers the incentive-driven impetus to capitalistic growth, which caused the inequality in the first place. The necessity for redistribution and social policy thus becomes a mechanism for the system to correct itself<\/i>. In the United States, it took the better part of the half century preceeding World War II for this to occur. The worst excesses of capitalism were reined in only when a middle-class backlash led to legislative change, regulatory reform and anti-corruption rules\u201d.<\/p>\n The current international financial crisis, with its massive bail-outs of financial institutions by tax-payers, has raised serious questions about the legitimacy <\/i>of casino-type capitalism of this sort. In this context, the concept of the unspoken \u201csocial contract<\/i>\u201d, lying at the heart of the capitalist system, may be helpful.<\/p>\n Noone has ever insisted upon absolute equality. Most people during their lifetime experience and appreciate the diversity of human life. Most people have no problem with the proposition that individual initiative, outstanding talent, pioneering innovation or hard work deserve their just reward. Most people are ready to accept considerable inequality of income or wealth, as long as it is truly justified by willingness to take risk or accept responsibility, beyond the normal chores. As long as those seeking to maximize their profits risk their own money, and do not flinch from accepting the losses as well. As long as the owners of capital play by the rules, pay their taxes for the common good and do not seek preferential treatment by political favours, the unspoken social contract can be said to hold.<\/p>\n But if the general public is faced with a fait accompli<\/i>, namely that the profits are privatized, but the debts are nationalized<\/i> \u2013 then this social contract can hold no longer. In one of his grand epic novels, Iceland\u2019s Bell, the Nobel price winning author, Halld\u00f3r Laxness<\/b>, has one of his characters, a vile and tough roughneck, J\u00f3n Hreggvi\u00f0sson, say about the justice meted out by the Danish colonial magistrates: \u201cEvil is their injustice, but worse still is their justice<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\n In traditional communities, around the mighty North Atlantic, where men risk their lives at sea every day in a struggle with overwhelming natural forces, it has long been deemed proper, that the captain receive three times the share of the deckhand. That has through the centuries turned out to be enough of an incentive for an enterprising seaman to aspire to becoming a captain. Is there any responsibility you can take upon yourself greater than the responsibility for the lives of your fellow men? How much is a life worth?<\/p>\n The most potent charges brought against the Nordic (and by implication) the European welfare state are the following: (1) The incessant expansion of the omnipotent state would in the end crowd out any space for the freedom of action and initiative of the private individual, whose creative powers would in the end be paralysed, just as in the totalitarian nightmare of communism or fascism (Hayek<\/b>). (2) The second charge is of a more pragmatic nature. It says that with their high taxes, necessary to finance the state\u2019s largesse, and the paralysing nature of bureaucratic regulation, the welfare states would simply lose out int the fierce competition in the global market place. This would lead to capital flight, technological obsolesence, massive unemployment and stagnation (Freedman<\/b>).<\/p>\n How does this doom-saying rhyme with the facts?<\/p>\n Let us first look at the second accusation \u2013 the inevitable loss of competitiveness. Since the turn of the 21st century the Nordic countries, sometimes along with Switzerland and some of the Asian countries (primarily S. Korea and Taiwan, where the state is a strong player in economic activism) have consistently been at the top of the class, when it comes to measuring competitiveness. The same goes for technological innovation, research and developement, women\u00b4s participation in the labour force, low unemployment, foreign direct investment, economic growth etc., etc..<\/p>\n Why? I know how Olof Palme would have answered that one: \u201cBecause of our consistent, long-term high investment in our human capital and social infrastructure. Because of our emphasis on equality of opportunity through free access to high quality education, that leaves noone behind\u201d.<\/p>\n I think that this is a conclusive answer. Apart from that the facts speak for themselves: The quality of life is nowhere better than in those countries, where equality is considered to be a virtue, according the UN Human Developement Index. And according to recent research (Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket<\/b>: The Spirit Level) the more equal a country is, the healthier are the people, on almost any scale you want to measure it. Child survival at birth, longevity, absence of diseases, low crime, job security and general feeling of security and well-being.<\/p>\n As for Hayek\u00b4s nightmare it has turned out to be just that: A nightmare. Reality is totally different. Democracy has deep roots in the Nordic countries. And it is very much alive and kicking. Unfettered intellectual debate is as robust as anywhere else. And what about freedom? It is pretty much as Olof Palme used to say:<\/p>\n \u201cBy empowering the many through free access to high quality education, we are in fact maximizing freedom<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/i> <\/i><\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cLibert\u00e9, Egalit\u00e9, Fraternit\u00e9\u201d<\/i> (Battle-cry of the French revolution)<\/p>\n \u201cFreedom can not consist of a privilege of the few \u2013 to the exclusion of the many\u201d<\/i> (Olof Palme, Swedish PM)<\/p>\n \u201c Me\u00f0 l\u00f6gum skal land byggja, en \u00f3l\u00f6gum ey\u00f0a<\/i>\u201d (\u201cUnder the law we build the land \u2013 without the law, we destroy it<\/i>\u201d – Ari fr\u00f3\u00f0i, an Icelandic 11th Chistorian)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I hail from a people whose founding fathers claimed that they left their homelands (the heartland of Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland), rather than succumb to the authority of the Norwegian king. This was in the 9th Century, during the Viking Age, when Norway was being unified by force into a single state.<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allar_greinar","category-articles-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2807,"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jbh.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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