Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Arrrh! Pirates!
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_17-2009_05_23.shtml#1242531643
A couple of months ago, I got in the mail a review copy of a
then-forthcoming book. I usually don't focus much on such copies
(unless they're science fiction or fantasy, or unless they're by
someone whose work I know and like), but this one grabbed my interest
from the outset. I read it and much enjoyed it, and decided that I had
to have the author guest-blog about the subject. The book is now out,
and I'm delighted to report that the author will be with us this week
to discuss it.
The author, Peter Leeson, is an economics professor at George Mason
University, and the author of more than 60 academic journal articles
analyzing a wide range issues in political economy and law and
economics. And the book is [1]The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics
of Pirates, which uses basic economic theory to explain and explore
infamous pirate behaviors. (We're talking the 1700s "Arrrh!" pirates,
the cool and romantic ones that are safely in the past, not the modern
ones that are actually a danger to us today, though the author briefly
touches on the modern pirates near the end.) Here's a summary of the
book from Princeton University Press:
Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss -- it's time to go a-pirating!
The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late
seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With
swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers
the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and
sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of
Skull & Bones? Why did they create a "pirate code"? Were pirates
really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The
Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous
aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know
and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing
economic conditions in the pursuit of profits.
The Invisible Hook looks at legendary pirate captains like
Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows
how pirates' search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and
forward-thinking practices. Pirates understood the advantages of
constitutional democracy -- a model they adopted more than fifty
years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an
early system of workers' compensation, regulated drinking and
smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality.
Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice --
their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects
and their greedy criminality secured social order. Pirates proved
that anarchy could be organized. Revealing the democratic and
economic forces propelling history's most colorful criminals, The
Invisible Hook establishes pirates' trailblazing relevance to the
contemporary world.
References
1.
http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hook-Hidden-Economics-Pirates/dp/0691137471/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242531355&sr=8-1
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