ORDERED
ANARCHY, STATE, AND RENT-SEEKING: THE
ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH, 930-1262
by
Birgir T. Runolfsson Solvason
7. CONCLUSION
The Commonwealth
Experience
Anarchy or State
CONCLUSION
"It is as if the universe designed an experiment to test the theories
of Hobbes and Rousseau and was kind enough to provide for the presence
of intelligent and sophisticated observers, the saga writer1s, to record
the results." (Miller 1990:5-6)
"The Icelandic Commonwealth is particularly interesting because it
seems to refute Hobbes' contention. It was a stateless society in the Weberian,
and Hobbesian, sense." (Gissurarson 1990:15)
The Commonwealth Experience.
I have in the preceding chapters presented an alternative account of the
Icelandic Commonwealth. I began by discussing the concept of cooperation
and its evolution, building on the work of Axelrod (1984) and Vanberg and
Buchanan (1989). This evolutionary theory offered a more fruitful and convincing
explanation of the rise of the institutional structure of the Commonwealth
than the constructivist theory. Next, I put the theory to the test of actually
explaining the rise of the institutional structure. I found that the theory
was highly informative in application and was able to account for Iceland's
institutional structure. Reciprocal behaviour on the part of the Icelanders
initiated and created the cooperative institutional system.1
This system began shaping about 930 and was in place by 960-5 and for almost
two centuries the structure seemed to be stable and manifesting certain
behaviourial regularities.
The institutional structure remained almost unchanged for some 300 years,
but its effectiveness deteriorated as time went on. The key to the stability
of the system in the earlier half of the period are found in the encouragement
of reciprocical behaviour, where the future repeated engagements are important
enough to discourage defections. The system's main institutions were the
þings, based on the Goði-þingmann or chieftaincy,
and the Hreppur, a compulsory communal unit for collective action
and decision making.2 Despite the system having some features
of centralization, such as the Lögrétta and the Hreppar,
the structure is thoroughly decentralized. This decentralization is best
manifested in the voluntary choice of chieftain's by the farmers and the
unanimous requirement of rectification of the changes in the law; the participation
of the whole population, excluding slaves and women was therefore required
for the structure's operation. The system in its earliest stages was also
well balanced, in the delegations followed each chieftain were roughly
equal in number. As the population expanded, deliberate attempts were made
by the chieftains to accommodate this. The structure was therefore modified
in the 960s, but the accommodation was only temporary and the balance it
achieved was eventually lost. Along with expanding population, the chieftain's
position as arbitrators and owners of temples/churches may have strengthened
their position with respect to their followers. In the latter half of the
eleventh century the system had likely become so skewed that the chieftains,
at the Church's initiative, were able to force taxation upon the general
population.
It seems that the chieftains had of necessity been keen on establishing
good relations with their farmers, offering help in adjudicating, arbitrating
and enforcing their legal cases and asking for little in return expect
the equivalent of the chieftain's foregone cost. As time went by the chieftains
realized the advantage of their privileged status and combined the sale
of legal and religious services for their own benefit. In so doing the
chieftains sought out a better paying opportunity form of rent-seeking
and in turn defected on their long term obligations to the farmers. By
the last decade of the eleventh century the chieftains were able to use
their position to introduce the tithe, obligating all farmers of wealth
to make a yearly payment to the chieftains, other richer farmers, and the
Church, of one percentile of their wealth.
In essence, rent-seeking (defection) became more profitable for the chieftains
than long-term reciprocical behaviour.3 Reciprocity, fruitful
in establishing Iceland's institutional structure, lost its importance
and such behaviour diminished. This is not to say that the chieftains were
able to do whatever they desired without the farmer's approval. Rather,
the farmer's support became less important to the chieftains, since their
choice of another chieftain became meaningless. The tied sales of legal
and religious services established the chieftains as local monopolies,
as minimal states. These minimal states now competed for more territory,
and population, and, most importantly, more chieftaincies and staðir.
The minimal states became fewer and fewer as the surviving ones triumphed
in their advancements. By the early thirteenth century civil war on a limited
scale had begun on the island and the end was near. Through the struggle
for wealth and power the chieftains mostly killed each other, killing some
of their armed followers also, and by 1250 only a few chiefdoms and even
fewer chieftains survived. By that time the king of Norway had established
a foothold in the country, overtaking some chieftainships; the king became
determined to overtake them all. The king triumphed in his endeavour by
the voluntary choice of the Icelandic farmers, who were tired of the continuous
struggle and outdated institutional structure. In 1262 the farmers in the
North and the South confirmed the agreement with the king, the farmers
of the Western Quarter in 1263 and in 1264 the Eastern farmers joined the
others with some reluctance, since their area had for the most part escaped
the war.
I have already discussed above what went wrong in the Commonwealth, but
have not offered an overall judgement of its performance. Such an overall
judgement can only be discussed in a comparative way; by comparing the
level of cooperation in it to some alternative, whether of that era or
modern.
Probably the most amazing thing about the development of the Icelandic
structure is to be found in the people that formed it. The Icelanders were,
for the most part, vikings and seafarers; a group hardly known for cooperative
behaviour. In fact, though, it should not be all that surprising that this
group of people developed such a structure. Modern historians have come
to the conclusion that the vikings were not as barbaric as the Anglo-Saxon
chroniclers would lead us to believe (Jones 1984;Sawyer 1971). Yet, medieval
societies, as we know them, were relatively violent, with or without the
vikings. In England, for example, the period from about 800 to 1200 is
a period of continuous struggle; high in both violence and killings. In
Norway, also, the period from about 850-1200 is one of continuous struggle,
although less so than in England. A brief comparison of the Icelandic society,
especially in its earlier half, suggests that it was more peaceful and
cooperative than its contemporaries. In fact Icelandic society was no more
violent than the modern U.S. (Friedman 1979).
Although it would be wrong to describe the Commonwealth as a democratic
society, which it surely was not, it was probably more so than its contemporaries.
There was of course a "democratic" tradition in the Germanic
tribes, but the English, for example, had fewer rights and less voice in
their society than did the Icelanders. The Commonwealth was also much more
individualistic, this showing itself in the institution of private property
and equality before the law, than were contemporary societies. In comparison
with modern societies, of course, Iceland falls short; there were no voting
rights, slaves and women were second class citizens, and there certainly
was no right to privacy.
As for the Icelandic economy in the Commonwealth period the sources are
mostly silent on that matter. Most historians, though, agree that the economy
was fairly prosperous, at least early on, and even in the latter half it
compared favourably with that of its neighbours (Þorsteinsson 1966).
Because of the sources' silence, though, any generalization about the Commonwealth
economy can, at this time, be no more than an educated guess.
ANARCHY OR STATE.
"Was the old Icelandic Commonwealth a state? ....Max Weber conceived
of the state as an authority holding a monopoly of power in a given area.
Since there was no one such authority in Iceland, the Commonwealth was
clearly not a state in a Weberian sense.... Hegel conceived of the state
as the force or principle which unifies a group, makes it a coherent whole.
In this Hegelian sense, the Icelandic Commonwealth was certainly a state.
It was defined by its culture and its law; it was a coherent whole."
(Gissurarson 1990:15)
An interesting question on the Commonwealth is whether we should consider
the experience as an experiment in a stateless order or not. My discussion
has shown that the Commonwealth did have, what we could call, legislative
and judicial branches of government, but no executive branch.4
Does this lack of an executive branch qualify the Commonwealth as a stateless
structure, or does the precense of the other two branches mean that it
has to be considered a form of a state?
Measured against Max Weber's definition of the state as holding monopoly
of power in a given area, the Commonwealth is not a state; it is in Weber's
terms a stateless order.5 Anthropologists in studying
primitive societies have come to the conclusion that societies made up
of chieftainships or chiefdoms are not states: "Chiefdoms are neither
stateless nor state societies in the fullest sense of either term: they
are on the borderline between the two. Having emerged out of stateless
systems, they give the impression of being on their way to centralized
states and exhibit characteristics of both" (Y. Cohen 1978:73). Since
the Commonwealth is made up of chiefdoms it seems that the anthropologist,
too, would describe it as lacking a state. The only field that would consider
the Commonwealth a state is philosophy, and then only some philosophers.
But whether the Commonwealth does or does not qualify as a stateless order
according to the several disciplines, its structure was quite different
from what we are accustomed to nowadays. The Commonwealth was a decentralized
structure, based mostly on voluntary cooperation,6
and enforcements of judgements were private. In both these respects it
is in sharp contrast to modern societies and it is in this that most of
the interest lies on my part. This is also where I would expect that we
could learn the most from.
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1 Jóhannesson (1956:71) had suggested that reciprocity
was what initiated the structure.
2 It might be more proper to say that the Goðorð, the chieftaincy,
rather than the local þing was base of the structure, since it was
through the chieftaincies that the population was connected to the þings
and the rest of the structure. It is also interesting to note that the
Hreppar continued to be the forum for grass-root democracy in Iceland all
the way to 1809.
3 In a sense the chieftains had become the ruling group that oversaw the
enforcement mechanism of the law. The relations between the free-farmers
no longer relied as heavily on continous dealings between the farmers,
but rather on such relations between the Goðar. As Tullock (1972) suggests,
this new situation relies overal less on reciprocity and continous dealings
and there is always a temptation here for the rulers to defect on the dealings,
even at the cost of lesser production. The temptation is greater here since
larger amounts are involved. In essence, therefore, reciprocity and continous
dealings are less important after a ruling class is established, than before,
and the danger of breakdown, or rather defection, are more probable. The
new situation is still Hobbesian, i.e. it is still a jungle. It may be
that what is needed is for someone to police the police (the Goðar),
i.e. a seperation of powers may be what is needed, but a lack of this is
hardly a cause here.
4 The legislative branch, of course, is not the same as
we have in the twentieth century. As we discussed in chapter 4 the Commonwealth's
Law Council rectified the law, but did not create and pass legislation
as modern day legislatures do. On this see Líndal (1984).
5 Others, like Taylor, define the state similarily to Weber: "I have
said that a necessary condition for a pure anarchy is that there is no
concentration of force at all. A society of the sort I have just described,
where there is a limited concentration of force but no means of enforcing
collective decisions, is the closest empirical approximation and I shall
call it an anarchy. Some anthropologists have been unwilling to concede
that even primitive societies of this kind are anarchies. This is because
they give a functional account of the state, characterizing it by what
it importantly does, and then argue that since these things get done in
all primitive societies, including the alleged anarchies, they cannot after
all be anarchic or stateless." (Taylor 1982:7) "Just as long
as the occupants of the political roles which emerge in the early development
of political specialisation are not backed by organized force, so cannot
enforce their decisions throughout the community, I shall say we are still
dealing with a stateless society." (Taylor 1982:9)
6 The exception was seen in the organization of the Hreppar;
there cooperation was compulsory. In a sense it could be said that if the
legal and judicial structure of the Commonwealth would qualify as a stateless
structure, then the Hreppar within the structure would surely not. The
Hreppur was to provide for all those within the unit that could not provide
for themselves and had no relatives within the unit to provide for them.
All free-men without landed property were also required by law to esatblish
a "legal address" so that no doubt would surface as to who were
to provide for them. Although the islanders were well-to-do they did live
on a rough island were surival depended could be hard. The law on compulsory
residency is therefore explainable and even justified. The Hreppar were
to some extent minature states or mini-welfare states (see Gissurarson
1990:17). The forced cooperation through the Hreppar, within an otherwise
voluntary associated structure, and residency requirement also make it
harder for anyone to claim that the Commonwealth was in any significant
way an example of libertarianism in practice.
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