In response to recent remarks made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the chairman of the Libertarian Society of Iceland has compared Iceland’s sitting government ministers to Soviet leaders.
In an interview with Eyjan, Minister of Foreign Affairs Össur Skarphéðinsson laid the blame for the financial collapse at the door of libertarian capitalism, saying in part that he had at one time wanted to create a group that would “wash out” libertarianism from Icelandic society, likening it to washing out a naughty child’s mouth with soap.
To this, Libertarian Society chairman Björn Jón Bragason takes great offence, telling Pressan that he found it “unfitting that a government minister would express the desire to exterminate a political opinion. This is related to the sort of ideology that was prominent in the Soviet Union,” adding that nine of the ten current ministers were at one point members of The Democratic Alliance (Alþýðubandalagið), which he claims had strong connections to the Soviet Union.
Björn furthermore contends that it was not regulations-free capitalism that brought about the 2008 financial collapse, but an economic system that blended socialism into the mix, adding, “Government intervention is the main cause of the financial collapse. Libertarianism has never taken hold in Iceland,” meaning that because the banks knew they had the government to fall back on, they made unwise financial decisions.
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