Iceland's economy: fishing, diversification, and limited resources

Iceland is a country most people know only by name. indeed, the name itself is one of the reasons so few tourists visit, given that they tend to look for warmer climes, and Iceland is clearly not in that hemisphere. Also, Iceland has few well-known tourist attractions or even historical sites of import. The country was settled by Norwegian and Celtic immigrants during the late 9th and 10th centuries a.D. The country does have the world's oldest functioning legislative assembly, the Althing, established in 930. Iceland was independent for more than 300 years before being ruled by Norway and Denmark. The economy was devastated by the effects of fallout from the Askja volcano of 1875, producing widespread famine, and over the next quarter century, 20% of the island's population emigrated. Most went to Canada and the United States. Denmark granted limited home rule in 1874, and Iceland gained complete independence in 1944 ("Iceland," the CIA World Fact Book).

Iceland today has a Scandinavian-type economy that is basically capitalistic, though it also has an extensive welfare system (including generous housing subsidies), low unemployment, and remarkably even distribution of income. There are few other natural resources (except for abundant geothermal power) than the fishing industry, which is the nation's mainstay. The fishing industry provides nearly 70% of export earnings and employs 6% of the workforce. The economy is thus sensitive to declining fish stocks and to fluctuations in world prices for its main exports: fish and fish products, aluminum, and ferrosilicon. Government economic policies include efforts to reduce the current account deficit, limitations on foreign borrowing, containing inflation, revising agricultural and fishing policies, and diversifying the economy. The government has been opposed to EU membership and remains so largely because of the concern of Icelanders about losing control over their fishing resources. Iceland's economy has been seeking diversification into manufacturing and service industries in the last decade, and the country is monitoring new developments in software production, biotechnology, and financial services. The tourism sector is also expanding, benefiting from recent trends in ecotourism and whale watching. Since 2000, economic growth has varied from -1% in 2002 to 8% in 2004. Even the 2006 closure of the U.S. military base at Keflavik had little impact on the national economy because Iceland's low unemployment rate aided former base employees in finding alternate employment ("Iceland," the CIA World Fact Book).

The society is stable since the time when emigration was high, and though unemployment is low, the population faces limited economic growth to date after a period of negative economic growth in the 1990s. The country is relatively small but also has limited resources, and any economic theory applied to this small population has to account for development in light of this lack of resources and lack of existing industry, outside of the fishing industry, which itself is subject to the vagaries of weather and shifts in the size of the fish population in the region. Iceland is part of Europe in certain terms but is also geographically separate from mainland Europe.

Theoretical Approaches

Because of its colonial past, Iceland might be considered in terms of dependency theory, a theory more often applied in regions like Latin America. The relationship between the developed and the developing world has been explained in a variety of ways, one of which is on the basis of dependency, holding that the developing states have been made dependent on the developed world and that this shapes the course of change in the developing world and even prevents much of that world from fully developing at the pace that it might. Dependency theory provides a way of seeing the relationship between the First World and developing countries such as those of Latin America both during and after the colonial era. There are different ways to approach dependency theory, and two of the perspectives are the Marxist approach and the neo-Marxian approach, with different emphases on aspects of the issue.

Dependency theory refers to the theory that development involves the dependency of the Third World on the developed world in a relationship defined by the exploitation of resources. Dependency theory was developed as an explanation for the patterns of development found in Latin America, finding that this pattern had been conditioned by the incorporation of the region into the capitalist mode of production. Development and underdevelopment are seen in terms of dependency theory as part of the same process and not as separate entities. Dependency theory was fashioned to explain the patterns of development in Latin America and held that this development had been conditioned by the incorporation of the region into the capitalist mode of production. The dependency of the Third World on the developed capitalist nations involves an interaction that explains the economic and social-class formations that have emerged in places like Latin America and also the structure of trade, technology, and investment between the developed and the developing world (Gilbert and Gugler 1-3).

Andre Gunder Frank offers a variant on neo-Marxist thinking on poverty in the form of his version of "dependency theory." Frank performed a historical analysis of Chile and Brazil in the context of the world's capitalist system, first criticizing "modernization theory" by objecting to the dual society thesis which claimed that underdevelopment represented a feudal tradition and a lack of modernization. Rather, Frank stated that underdevelopment must be understood in the context of world capitalism which had transformed the earlier feudal system and used the surplus for its own benefit, a thesis in agreement with Baran. It was Frank who divided countries into metropolitan/satellite or center/periphery, and "underdevelopment in Frank's theory is not an original condition, nor does it result from the archaic institutions surviving in isolated regions. Rather it is generated by the same process which develops the center; in particular, underdevelopment in the periphery results from the loss of surplus which is expropriated for the investment in the center" (Peet 47). Frank sees underdevelopment as a process rather than a condition, following his term "the development of underdevelopment." Frank sees many Third World countries as being located in the periphery.

Theorists like Baran and Frank argue that capitalism in the underdeveloped world is incompatible with economic growth in any but the most superficial ways. In later periods, theorists like Baran and Frank advanced theories of neoimperialism "which sought to rework the classic analysis in the new context of U.S. hegemony, the Cold War and a relatively stable inter-imperialist system" (Radice). The dependency school of Baran and Frank was contrasted with the world-systems theory of Wallerstein, another broadly Marxist tradition.

Baran argued that the underdeveloped countries of the world were characterized by dual economies, a large agricultural sector and a small industrialized sector (Martinussen 86). Baran further emphasized class relations and the impact they had on the utilization of economic surplus and its distribution of power. These are seen as primary barriers preventing development, making the crucial point the internal conditions of the given Third World country. Baran recommended that to escape from dependency, what was needed was the application of extensive state intervention to promote nationally controlled industrialization as a precondition leading to the evolution of other industrial sectors (Martinussen 87).

Frank's main thesis, on the other hand, identifies the causes of underdevelopment, or what he calls "the development of underdevelopment," as being found in the idea of metropoles and satellites, with metropoles being the target of merchant capital and with the satellites existing simply to feed the requirements of the metropoles. The crucial mechanism for aching this is trade and other kinds of exchange of goods and services, at all levels. His proposed solution to the problem of dependency was to require Third World countries to de-link from the world market, thus allowing the country to develop Martinussen 88-89). In this way, Frank blames external factors, differentiating him from the Modernization School, which assumed that causes were to be found inside the Third World countries themselves, such as culture, overpopulation, reduced investment, or simply a lack of motivation on the part of the people.

In Iceland, the dependency that has resulted has been less a conscious decision of exploitation than the fact that the region has limited resources and so is dependent on the fishing trade with the more developed world. This places Iceland more in the modernization school of Wallerstein, and indeed the economic problems facing Iceland do seem more a condition than a process.

Conclusion

The prospects for Iceland are good but will depend on the ability to develop the necessary technological infrastructure to help develop information industries that can be of particular service to Europe, Canada, and America. Many underdeveloped parts of the world are seeking the same sort of technological fix today, some more successfully than others. Iceland may have to import more technologically-oriented workers in the short-term but can train its own workers once the process is more advanced. The ecotourism that has become more important in recent years also offers a chance for increasing GDP for the region, and Iceland has a number of geographical features that appeal to ecotourists, including suffering some of the effects of global warming as more and more of the ice sheets in the area begin to melt and cause the sea level to rise. The volcanic activity in the area is another point of attraction for ecotourists. The country would do well to give more attention to developing whatever infrastructure is needed for this type of industry, including hotels and restaurants as well as tours and the like. The country simply must increase its economic reach beyond the fishing industry and fid ways to make use of its unique geographic location and topographical features.