Can the experience of Icelandic Vikings eight centuries ago teach us a lesson about the dangers of privatization? Jared Diamond thinks so. In his article "Living on the Moon," published in the May 23, 2002, issue of the New York Review of Books, Diamond portrays the history of Iceland in the Viking period as a nightmarish vision of privatization run amuck. Libertarian scholars and free-market enthusiasts have often pointed to the Icelandic Free State (930-1262) as a positive example of a society that functioned successfully with little or no government control. Writing in the Journal of Legal Studies, economist David … Continue reading The Vikings Were Libertarians