Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.08.2012, Page 22

As Iceland struggles to emerge from
an economic depression brought on
in part by lax government regula-
tion, Professor Hannes Hólmsteinn
Gissurason says Icelanders need
more Ayn Rand in their lives. A well-
known neoliberal who counts Fried-
rich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Adam
Smith and David Hume amongst his
intellectual influences, he is now
working on The Ayn Rand Project,
which aims to translate Rand’s nov-
els into Icelandic and to organise
meetings and lectures on her philos-
ophy. As ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ the sec-
ond of her novels to be translated to
Icelandic, is scheduled to come out
in October, Hannes explains what
Icelanders can learn from Rand.
The New “Left-Wing Orthodoxy”
Do you think that Rand has had
any influence in Iceland?
Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ was
published in an Icelandic translation
in 1990, and quickly sold out. In 1949,
Morgunblaðið serialised her novel, ‘We
The Living.’ The Icelandic Broadcast-
ing Service has several times broadcast
a play by Rand, ‘The Night of January
16th.’ I would, however, say that her in-
f luence in Iceland until now has been
negligible.
Do you think Icelandic society
needs more Rand influence
then?
Definitely. Ayn Rand’s position is
very challenging, especially to the new
left-wing orthodoxy in Iceland, the po-
litical correctness, the fear of freedom
and individual responsibility. Her nov-
els are fascinating. It is not a wonder
that they have sold almost 30 million
copies worldwide. Rand knows how
to tell a story and also how to convey
a message. She makes an illuminat-
ing contrast between those who create
wealth on the one hand and those who
try to take it away from them on the
other hand, or in other words a contrast
between productive individuals and po-
litical parasites. In my appreciation of
Rand’s novels, I am in good company.
One of her admirers, for example, is
the actress Angelina Jolie, and another
well-known artist, Michael Caine, is
such an admirer that he named his old-
est daughter after the heroine of ‘The
Fountainhead,’ Dominique.
Too Much Intellectual Cowardice
Why is the Icelandic Research
Centre for Innovation and Eco-
nomic Growth sponsoring the
translation and publication of
Ayn Rand’s novels in Icelandic?
Because Ayn Rand describes the
necessity of innovation and entrepre-
neurship in her books. Her heroes are
the innovators, those who have new
ideas and create wealth, the industrial
magnates for example. Those people
have to have freedom to act, experiment
and innovate if we are to have economic
growth. They are the true benefactors
of mankind, not the demagogues who
want to do good with other people’s
money.
Why bother translating Rand
when just about everyone in
Iceland speaks English? Does
the Centre hope that the Icelan-
dic youth will absorb Rand?
Tens, or even hundreds of novels are
translated from other languages into
Icelandic every year. There is as good a
reason to translate Rand into Icelandic
as those other novels, especially when
you consider that she is still a best-
selling author all over the world. But
the wider question is of course whether
we should speak Icelandic at all. My an-
swer is that we should, and the reason
is that we ARE Icelanders. We would
be losing something very valuable if we
lost our culture of which Icelandic is an
extremely important part, if we would
cut our ties to the past, and to each
other. Indeed, we established the Uni-
versity of Iceland on June 17, 1911, our
national hero’s 100th birthday. Why did
we do this? Why did we just not send
our people to study abroad? Because we
wanted to learn and to teach Icelandic
law, Icelandic history and Icelandic lit-
erature, not only Danish or English law,
history and literature.
Regarding Icelandic youth, I would
say that Rand has proven to be very
stimulating to many young people, not
least because of her radical ideas and
her willingness to take the arguments
to their logical conclusions and not to
compromise. There is too much intel-
lectual cowardice in Western society
today, too much of a tendency to follow
the f lock.
What Responsibility?
Some argue that it was some
version of Randism that got
Iceland into trouble in the first
place and that we need more
government regulation and
monitoring of business. So
why publish Rand now when it
seems like we need anything
but Rand?
Got Iceland into trouble? Come on,
this was an international economic re-
cession. Initially it hit Iceland harder
than other countries (partly because of
the British labour government’s ruth-
lessness), but it did not of course origi-
nate in Iceland.
A persuasive
case can be made
for misguided
government inter-
vention (such as
subprime lending
in the US, and arti-
ficially low interest
rates maintained
by the Fed) as an
important cause of
the recession. If so,
then Rand’s distrust
of government in-
tervention is indeed
highly relevant. I
think however that
the main problem
with regulation as
a way of controlling
the market is that
we then presume
that there is more
knowledge available to the regulators
and the controllers than to those con-
trolled, and this is plainly false. Who
should control the controllers, anyway?
It may be that new financial techniques
were a part of the problem, but then
they should be dealt with, not outlawed.
The main concern should be that
reckless people should not be able to
shift the responsibility, and the cost, for
their recklessness and mistakes from
themselves to other people. Why should
the German taxpayers, for example,
pick up the bill for Greek spendthrifts
and their creditors in German and
other European banks? Why do those
people always try to dig into our pock-
ets? Why all those bailouts? These are
Randian questions.
Mitt Romney’s running mate
Paul Ryan, a known Rand-
ian, recently told the National
Review, “I reject her philoso-
phy. It’s an atheist philosophy.
It reduces human interactions
down to mere contracts and it
is antithetical to my worldview.
If somebody is going to try to
paste a person’s view on epis-
temology to me, then give me
Thomas Aquinas…Don’t give me
Ayn Rand.” What do you think of
her opinions on religion, given
all of the trouble the church has
had, etc.?
I agree with Paul Ryan that Rand’s
philosophy is far
too one-sided. I do
not share, for ex-
ample, her militant
atheism. Philo-
sophically, I am
more in the tradi-
tion of the Scottish
En l i g hten ment ,
with David Hume
and Adam Smith,
and I have also
learned a lot from
St. Thomas Aqui-
nas, for that mat-
ter. We have fur-
ther commitments
than those who
have been signed
by contract. The
party of liberty
has to be a broad
church rather than
a narrow sect.
But Rand has an important mes-
sage. This message is that we should
value the contributions of those indi-
viduals who are fiercely independent
in their thought and creative and in-
novative in economic life. I think that
her books are a good medicine; they
are a good corrective to the collectivist
tendencies in today’s society. But even
if necessary, medicine should not be
mistaken for food. That is the truth in
Ryan’s criticism of Rand.
The Oppressive “Talking Classes”
What can Icelanders learn from
Rand and her message?
What we can learn from it is to value
innovation and entrepreneurship. Right
now, the working classes in Iceland are
oppressed by the talking classes. Those
who work and contribute to the econo-
my are heavily taxed for the benefit of
those who can just talk, and hold con-
ferences, and beg for alms in Brussels,
and rattle with their collection cans. We
have to throw off the yoke of the talk-
ing classes and reward individuals for
their real contribution to society, for the
creation of wealth, for widening choice,
for increasing opportunities. We badly
need new companies, new services,
new goods. Which is a better way to deal
with poverty, to subsidise it or to create
more opportunities for people to work
themselves out of poverty?
How does the mission of the Ayn
Rand Project compare to the
mission of Eimreiðin?
The Eimreiðin Group, which was in-
f luential in the 1980s and 1990s under
the leadership of Þorsteinn Pálsson and
Davíð Oddsson, pursued a much softer
line than does Ayn Rand. The Eim-
reiðin Group was a liberal-conservative
group very much in the spirit of Hayek
and Friedman, and Thatcher and Rea-
gan. I do not think that Ayn Rand could
ever win an election. She is an uncom-
promising writer and thinker. It is both
her strength and her weakness. But she
is a voice, which belongs in the conver-
sation of mankind. It should be heard,
uppsprettan
By: Ayn Rand
Publisher: Almenna Bókafélagið
Translation: Þorsteinn Siglaugsson
Book
Politics | Literature
Do Icelanders Need More Ayn Rand In Their
Lives? Professor Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurason
argues that they do
Words by Anna Andersen. Photo by Baldur Kristjáns.
22
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2012
“
Why should the German
taxpayers, for example,
pick up the bill for Greek
spendthrifts and their
creditors in German and
other European banks?
Why do those people
always try to dig into our
pockets? Why all those
bailouts? These are Ran-
dian questions.”„
Who Is
Hannes Hólmsteinn?
Hannes Hólmsteinn, a professor of political science at the University of Iceland, is
one of the most influential public intellectuals in Iceland. Depending on perspec-
tive, he has been variously credited for or accused of being the main ideologue
for Iceland’s Independence Party government of 18 years, which pushed through
an ambitious privatisation agenda that ultimately led to a financial crisis and
near-bankruptcy of Iceland.
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Issue No 13 – August 28 - September 10 – 2009
Political science professor Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson is often referred to as the Ind penden e Party’s chief ideologue, and
has been credited with laying down the lines for the massive de-regulation and privatisation process Iceland underwent during
the past two decades. Some thanked him for the prosperity, now he is being blamed for the downfall. PG. 19.
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HANNES HÓLMSTEINN: