

Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government - kiba
http://mises.org/daily/1121

======
mbrubeck
The David Friedman cited here is the son of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman,
and the father of Patri Friedman (former Google engineer, now director of the
Peter Thiel-funded Seasteading Institute: <http://seasteading.org/>).

His book _The Machinery of Freedom_ has a lot more about law without
government, both historically and speculatively:
[http://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-
Capita...](http://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-
Capitalism/dp/0812690699)

His weblog is pretty good reading for HN fans too:
<http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/>

~~~
jacoblyles
The Machinery of Freedom is a great book. One of the few capitalist-Anarchist
tomes __not __in the Austrian tradition, and much more convincingly argued
than most.

Sadly, it is little known or read. I asked David about putting the text online
since sales are so small, but the publisher still owns the rights to it.

Sometimes I think, what would the world be like without the Friedmans?
Definitely a grayer, less free and dynamic place.

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claymmm
According to "Viking Age Iceland" the Icelanders mostly settled disputed by
tit-for-tat revenge killing of each others' slaves. It was all really grim.

[http://www.amazon.com/Viking-Age-Iceland-Penguin-
History/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Viking-Age-Iceland-Penguin-
History/dp/0140291156)

~~~
mattchew
You're probably talking about Njal's Saga. There is a feud that degenerates
into exactly that--but it is also clear if you read the story that this is not
the normal way disputes get settled. We got a saga out of it precisely because
the standard process broke down in spectacular fashion.

You should be able to find a copy of Njal's Saga pretty easily. I recommend
reading it for yourself--even apart from the historical/political value, it's
just a good story.

~~~
berntb
Sorry for coming in late when no one reads anymore, but...

Clan societies (that is, most everywhere, before state monopolies on violence)
had this kind of revenge for generations. Afghanistan and parts of Iraq are
famous present examples.

Afaik (no references, but I think Wikipedia supports this), the research says
that old Scandinavia's local ting was a bit more of a negotiating place for
feuds than a governing/judging assembly.

Edit: Life on Iceland was certainly even harder than in the rest of
Scandinavia. That would probably have left less time over for that time's main
sports -- pillage, etc.

~~~
mattchew
I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me or not.

Medieval Iceland was a violent place, and the _threat_ of violence was much
more overt than it is now. But it was not a society where disputes were
_primarily_ settled by killing.

> the research says that old Scandinavia's local ting was a bit more of a
> negotiating place for feuds than a governing/judging assembly.

It was a place to negotiate disputes (which sometimes ended up as feuds). It
was a place to recite the (complex and sophisticated) law code of the saga
period Icelanders. It was also a place to show off your prosperity and the
quality of your alliances.

I have to reiterate. If you are at all interested in this stuff, read a saga
for yourself. Whatever else you end up concluding, you'll get over the idea
that these people were a bunch of doltish brutes.

> Life on Iceland was certainly even harder than in the rest of Scandinavia.

I'm not sure why you're certain of that. Iceland was settled by Scandinavians
after all. People don't usually emigrate to a place where life is harder than
where they started.

> That would probably have left less time over for that time's main sports --
> pillage, etc.

Several times in the sagas you read of young men going off to raid and
plunder, sometimes coming back to settle down at the farmstead. They pillaged,
just not each other.

~~~
berntb
a. You do know how clan societies work?

b. Check climate data; Iceland was (and is) a hard place for farming, etc.
Check population density and add that to that until quite recently, Malthus'
description of human deaths/births ruled (the "Essay on the Principle of
Population" in itself also answers your theory that people don't generally
emigrate to places where life is harder).

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idlewords
Two points:

The population of medieval iceland never exceeded 80,000.

The country was Catholic, there was plenty of church law.

~~~
jacobolus
Yup. It's the size of, say, a Greek city-state, or a large-ish rock concert.

Radically open (or otherwise atypical) government structures are much more
feasible at that kind of scale.

~~~
barmstrong
Source?

I've seen this claim a few times, but never a study on it.

~~~
jacobolus
Have you ever seen one that worked at a larger scale than that? Bigger systems
require more layers of organization: there are more places for disagreements
to crop up, and resolving them is a bigger and harder problem. Disagreements
about the fundamental defining purposes of an institution multiply, and these
conflicts need to be resolved somehow. Everyone needs these definitions to be
mostly compatible for institutions to function, and this just isn't feasible
without some structure at larger size. At the size of a single family, it can
work pretty well – doesn’t usually, but I know some families that are
shockingly egalitarian. There also exist small companies, university academic
departments, primary schools, research labs, etc. which are culturally uniform
and cohesive enough for this to work. Even at the size of a city, I think it’s
mostly impossible: the best we can hope for is widely supported
representatives who operate transparently and are accountable for their
actions.

Iceland is a pretty unique case: everyone there is pretty much everyone else’s
cousin, and they’re on an island. They look the same, have roughly the same
beliefs, etc. etc. And I’m still far from convinced that medieval Iceland was
really so utopic.

I'm thinking of Sparta though, which was by many accounts pretty culturally
uniform and egalitarian/meritocratic, at least for citizens.

* * *

I think the best analysis I know is still Tocqueville’s _Democracy in
America_. I also recommend _The Federalist Papers_ , particularly Nos. 10 and
51, for a pragmatic solution to these kinds of problems, based on the decades
of first-hand experience some smart blokes like Madison and Jefferson had
trying to run fledgling democratic states. (And Machiavelli’s _Discourses on
Livy_ is probably worth a read too.)

For a more literary exploration, read some Balzac novels: early 19th century
France was the beginning of the cross-over from aristocracy to bourgeoisie,
and rapidly growing cities quickly accumulated bureaucracies.

~~~
esspem
Have you ever seen a working liberal democracy before US? :) That kind of
argument doesn't work for proving impossibility.

Life without violence from government (taxes) is certainly possible. In 19th
century US government spendings were only 2% from GDP. Such amount can be
collected with charity without force.

~~~
anigbrowl
Of course, in the 19th century the continental US wasn't densely settled and
shooting the natives was considered reasonable under many circumstances. Get
real, any country in the world that found itself with vast tracts of fertile
land more or less free for the taking would have a fabulous GDP - budget ratio
too.

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noarchy
I don't know if I'd call this an "absence" of government, just an example of a
relatively minimal government. There was a hierarchy of some kind here, and a
concept of laws. What looks remarkably different to us today is that it lacked
a massive bureaucracy.

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foldr
>In a stateless society, men are selected according to their ability. Status,
money, power, and greed, everything that the advocates for a strong central
government stand for are not prerequisites for leaders

I was unable to make any sense of this, or the rest of the final paragraph.
Surely having money and power could help you to get a position of authority in
a stateless society. E.g. by advertising, bribing, spending the money on
popular philanthropic projects, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless.

(In fact, isn't it almost tautologically false to claim that power is "not a
prerequisite" for being a leader? Leaders have power virtually by definition.)

And as far as "men" being selected based on their ability, why on earth should
abolishing the state suddenly give everyone perfect judgement?

~~~
barmstrong
Check the wording carefully...by saying they are "not prerequisites" this does
not mean having money can't help you.

It's a matter of degree. With a powerful state people are more likely to
obtain positions of power due to favors, or who they know rather than merit.
The reason being that if you're a government official and you hire the
senator's son over a more qualified candidate (to gain his favor) it's not as
big of a deal if he screws up because it's not your money he is losing (it's
the tax payers).

In a free society you're more likely to hire the best person for the job
because it's your own money on the line if he screws up.

As Milton Friedman once so elegantly put it, you always spend your own money
more carefully than you spend someone else's. And this can be a powerful
incentive.

~~~
anigbrowl
_The reason being that if you're a government official and you hire the
senator's son over a more qualified candidate (to gain his favor) it's not as
big of a deal if he screws up because it's not your money he is losing (it's
the tax payers)_

You must hate most corporations then - all-powerful executive, weak and
passive boards of directors, and shareholders with little influence who have
to take the haircut for executive screwups.

Why is it that most of the institutions of capitalism have such hierarchical
structures? Seen any anarchist corporations on the stock ticker lately? No?
Maybe that's because when laissez-faire capitalists start talking about
freedom, they're talking about what they want for themselves, not everyone
else. As Adam Smith observed, men of the same profession seldom come together
save with the intent to defraud the public.

~~~
barry-cotter
Yeah, but shareholders in corporations have a much more credible threat of
exit. The more people exercise said right the more the price falls, and
eventually the management is replaced.

------
axiom
The article mentions several times that the Icelandic form of government
lasted longer than the US - if anything I see that as a negative indicator,
given how little actual progress occurred during that time. Compare the impact
the US system of government has had with the impact the Icelandic form cited
in this article had. The indigenous populations of North America and Australia
have been around for thousands of years as well, with their "chieftain"
systems of government, and similarly they just stagnated.

~~~
Nwallins
> _Compare the impact the US system of government has had with the impact the
> Icelandic form cited in this article had. The indigenous populations of
> North America and Australia have been around for thousands of years as well,
> with their "chieftain" systems of government, and similarly they just
> stagnated._

You really ought to check out _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ by Jared Diamond.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel#The_theo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel#The_theory_outlined)

Specifically, he would question your use of the word _stagnate_.

~~~
axiom
I've read it, and I think it's silly to ascribe societal success based on the
various random incedental facotrs surrounding it.

~~~
Nwallins
I don't see where randomness comes into his explanation. Rather, I see his
explanation for technological success as hinging on massive societies which
specialize, which is in turn based on highly developed domestic agriculture,
which is in turn based on the East-West axis of Eurasia with origins in the
Fertile Crescent and East Asia.

------
zephjc
Interestingly, this reminds me of the distributed cultural nation-states based
on interests as described in _The Diamond Age_. The idea of non-location-based
national affiliation has interested me since I read about that, and though
I've read some about old Iceland's political system, I never knew they had
such a thing.

~~~
lionhearted
> the idea of non-location-based national affiliation has interested me

Interests me too. There's got to easily be at least 10 million, 20 million
people who think the way I think, but we're all spread out and surrounded by
hundreds of millions of people who want to force us to do their bidding,
impose their morals on us by force, and so on. Individually we couldn't stand
up against a horde, but if we could become part of the same recognized
affiliation and negotiate and work together voluntarily - that'd be something.

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jamesbressi
Fantastic find, thanks for sharing!

While I am now very interested in learning more about Medieval Iceland and
it's government, I do wonder if some type of "federal" authority would have
prevented it's demise?

Now, I am not in favor of the current heavy federal government and its power
over the states here in the U.S. I think the balance between Medieval Iceland
and the U.S. is to shift power back to our 50 states, and have our federal
government there to do what it was originally intended: prevent what was the
demise of Medieval Iceland.

Hopefully that made sense.

~~~
kiba
Its demise was the introduction of the involuntary church tithe which forced
the free farmers to pay the chieftain. This create a capture audience, allow
cheftains to concentrate their power, and create a less competitive market for
law and abritation.

A "federal" authority would concentrate and centralize power and create the
same situation exactly the opposite of what we want.

~~~
jamesbressi
Thanks for that clarity and helping me arrive to that answer more quickly. I
would have eventually got there when I started loading information about this
history tonight.

Intriguing that this history isn't referenced more often.

