Debunking Adam Something’s Claims on Anarcho-Capitalism in Medieval Iceland
Famous YouTuber, Adam Something, decided about a year ago to diverge from his usual discussion topic of urban planning and public transportation to make a series of videos on what he thinks (or at least pretends to think to please his audience) that anarcho-capitalism would look like in practice. The absurdities presented thereon will not be addressed here, having been previously handled well by the YouTubers PraxBen and Mentis Wave. No, what will be discussed here is his various inane statements about medieval Iceland and how he thinks this shows anarcho-capitalism to ostensibly be doomed to fail. A simple look at the history without an ideological goal in mind will show the largely facile nature of these claims. Ironically, the most truthful claim he makes is to say that the Icelandic Commonwealth was only a “proto-Ancap” society. While doubtless not his intention, this was actually true, as the society was more of an anarchist one, but less of a capitalist one. That minor historical truth of his being acknowledged, let us continue.
To begin, Adam Something concedes that the Icelandic Commonwealth managed to exist from 930 AD to 1262 AD, but quickly brushes this aside. Well, this is hardly nothing. To put things in perspective, it would have to be the year 2108 AD before the United States will have existed for as long a period as the anarchic period in Iceland did. One cannot help but wonder if that means the existence of the United States is just a momentary blip by this standard? Is 332 years not a sufficient timeframe for something notable? One would think that the latter absurdities he attributes to the island’s lack of government would have occurred within a few years of the territory’s free period, but it seems even a few centuries will not sufficiently please him.
From there, Adam Something throws all pretenses of historical accuracy out the window and begins to engage in what is basically conjecture and political pandering, rather than any sort of examination of the historical facts. He makes the claim that the people of Iceland had some sort of territorial plebiscite for the King of Norway to take over their country and baselessly attributes this so-called popular referendum to the society’s lack of a government. First of all, the people of Iceland never voted to be annexed by Norway. What occurred was that the goðorð chieftains he only later gets around to mentioning decided to to allow such an annexation that very well might have occurred anyway by signing what is known as the Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") in 1262 and thus officially ending the Icelandic Commonwealth by allowing King Haakon IV to claim Iceland as part of his Norwegian kingdom. So, not quite a 2014 Scotland independence referendum. A cynical critic might suspect Adam knew all of this while making this video, as the information is very readily available on the same Wikipedia page he openly admits to being getting his information on this topic from, but chose to ignore all of it because he wanted to spin a particular historical narrative that he knew his presumably uninformed base might be excited to hear for ideological purposes. But perhaps that is just this writer’s interpretation.
Anyway, he points out how violence occurred in medieval Iceland and seems to attribute this solely to a lack of government, as the Middle Ages are apparently just famous for their lack of wars due to the existence of governments. From this, it seems the audience is supposed to assume this would happen without a government today. Our current world of governments being apparently free of wars and crime. It is only after all of this that Adam begins to address the aforementioned goðorð chieftain system. It is best not to anticipate any mention of their being connected to the decision for Iceland to be annexed by Norway, as no such historical honesty can be found in the video. He reads off from Wikipedia how there was originally 39 goðorð acting as a contractual defense agency early in the existence of the Icelandic Commonwealth, but then by the late 12th century (so, over two centuries later), a few families had consolidated control over them and by 1220, they were effectively geographical chieftains who presumably acted more like war lords than private defense agencies. An unfortunate state of affairs which does actually have an explanation, but let’s hear how Adam Something phrases it. He claims the consolidation of goðorð into a few families sounds to him like the consolidation of oligopolies in today’s modern economy as displayed by an infamous visual. This just seems downright bizarre to this viewer. Firstly, it had already been established that after two centuries, the production of defense went from being a commodity to more like something coercive. So, one would think this would be good news to supporters of the state, as Adam Something unabashedly is. Instead, he seems to suggest that such a concept would be fine if the market (supposedly) did not make it inevitable that oligopolies would form. So, already ideologically inconsistent on whether he wants an institution with a monopoly on violence or not. Dozens of competitors or a monopoly for defense are fine, but oligopolies are not. If you’re confused, don’t be ashamed. Ordinarily, of course, oligopolies like the food companies presented in that graphic form because those companies are best able to serve their consumers by offering them lower prices. Once again, this comparison between modern food company oligopolies and chieftains on a medieval island feels hackneyed and only done to please ideological opponents of not just anarcho-capitalism, but the market economy in general.
From there, he goes on to say that his favorite part of the whole historical ideal in Iceland was the fact that the public voted for Norway to take over the country because anarcho-capitalism “failed so hard”. His only source for how the people of Iceland ostensibly voted to end this is an article on Libertarianism.org on anarcho-capitalism in general that briefly and incorrectly mentions the aforementioned 1262 Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") as being a vote of the people of Iceland for Norway to govern them. While it is true the goðorð were Icelandic people, the mistake here is to assume it was a ballot initiative of the whole island. Admittedly, Andrew Morriss should have been a bit clearer in that article. All the same, one cannot help but wonder how a society with no central government would have organized such an affair and who would be in charge of collecting the ballots and ratifying the results.
Finally, Adam Something begins to acknowledge some of Icelandic historic reality by pointing out how that vote of the goðorð chieftains was not some random event, but the result of years of pressure by King Haakon IV to expand his kingdom. He presents this as though it were the only objection one could make. He then lists out how he feels the example of Iceland shows what would inevitably result from an anarcho-capitalist society by providing just three possibilities: Invasion, Manipulation, and Ignorance. Invasion in Iceland was only possible because of how the goðorð chieftains had consolidated control of the island in a matter akin to a state. We know that this was not necessarily historically inevitable because of what occurred in another medieval island: Ireland. In Ireland, prior to the arrival of Oliver Cromwell, the English found it nearly impossible to take over the island precisely because there was no formal government to surrender to. It took Cromwell’s bloodbath to bring the Irish to heel. You may think this helps Adam Something’s point, but keep in mind that the conquest of Ireland was very much driven by anti-Catholic fanaticism not likely to be repeated and that Ireland was never exactly anarchic, so much as multiple petty kingdoms squabbling among themselves. But even that was too decentralized for a formal government to vanquish without a brutal war. Iceland, having a much smaller population than Ireland, then and now, was thus easier to have a formal government form and open the gates to Norway. As for manipulation and ignorance, both of Adam Something’s points here rely on the false notion that this was a Brexit-style referendum that the people of Iceland doomed themselves by. A point that has been thoroughly dismantled at this point. So, it is clear that Adam Something was not actually interested in having an honest discussion about the fate of the Icelandic Commonwealth, but rather just wanted to set up strawmen to knock them down.
As an afterthought, it is worth asking if the consolidation of Icelandic chieftains sounded “awfully familiar” to food oligopolies to Adam Something, one must wonder what is holding him back from embracing anarcho-capitalism? If we supposedly already have the economic model at play, what is the concern? May as well enjoy the freedom that the lack of a state would provide. Instead, only a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and violence would please him. Such is the pity.
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