As a system for providing prosperity, the Icelandic laws and norms worked pretty well (better than most big empires or petty kingdoms of the middle ages). As a system for providing justice they worked less well. It was a system in which might made right, and if your side was mighty enough you had no need to stick to the rules. A lot of what went down was really just power politics.

This is hardly unique to iceland of course. But not quite the idyl that Alexander describes.

The other thing that Alaxander/Friendman doesn’t really seem to care about–but which Miller does–was the overwhelming importance of honor and face in this system. So contrary to Alexander’s claim that most people would bow out before the charge of outlawry was laid, plenty of people would accept the claim in name of honor and fight all comers who came. Millar has given a lot of careful thought to why people in honor cultures do what they do. His legal analysis is a Schellingesque, but he takes emotions far more seriously than economist types would. He is Schelling meets Gavin de Becker meets a crusty Oxford professor of Old English.

The pre-existing form might affect the frequency and scale of the disruptions — a despotic monarchy might collapse under conditions a feudal or tribal or oligarchic one might survive, they all probably stall more frequently but less intensely than republics. Fewer players, more specific stakes, less challenge to the overall definition of the system.

Apart from that — thanks — I now have a Japanese slang term to call my very own and which describes my lifestyle. And here I thought only anime or flower enthusiasts could have those.

As for science-fiction authors reading the sagas, I must highly recommend Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early,” which is included in The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century. (It came up earlier, when I was discussing books that have influenced me and ideas behind their time.) I also recommend his Uncleftish Beholding, an explanation of atomic theory bereft of borrowed Latin words.

I agree that Friedman seems oddly upbeat about Icelandic anarchy, but it is saying something that it lasted hundreds of years before spiraling out of control — like democratic republics.

I did not get to Miller’s Why is my Ax Bloody? (or any of his other rather fascinating titles) but I would like to.

My thoughts from all this reading were numerous. But some highlights:

*It is a great shame that Thomas Schelling never read the Sagas. They are made for Schelling.

*William Ian Miller is almost as good as Shelling might have been. (And better than Friedman, if Alexander’s summaries are correct). This guy is something else.

*Every libertarian needs to read at least Njal’s Saga and Miller’s Bloodtaking and Peacemaking. Maybe not all of the latter but parts.

*Every science fiction author should read them too. The social and legal world of med iceland is way more out-of-this-world than most science fictionists can manage, but presented as engrossing literature, not some pseudo-scientific ethnographic report.

*It is possible to have a system of laws that people follow and obey without having any government at all. Law precedes government.

*But those systems are also very bloody. The Icelanders chose freedom, equality, and violence.

*Isegoria would really like William Ian Miller.

As a final note–not something from my reading, but a response to Friedman glossed by Alexander: it is very difficult to read the Saga of Burnt Njal as a manifesto in favor of the system’s stability. The titular character spends the entire book talking about how the law is king… and is burnt alive in house for his efforts. The feuding spirals out of control until almost every faction in the island is involved. You might call that stable–but normally speaking, when the death of man blossoms into battles with tens of people on each side, and a killings and counter killings stretch on for two decades we would not call this situation ‘stable.’