Did you know that they were early incubators of democracy?
Yes, those stereotypically lawless rum-chuggers turned out to be ardent democrats. And in their strange enlightenment, Leeson sees the answer to a riddle about human nature, worthy of “Lord of the Flies” or an early episode of “Lost.” In the absence of government and law enforcement, what becomes of a band of men with a noted criminal streak? Do they descend into violence and chaos?
The pirates who roamed the seas in the late 17th and early 18th centuries developed a floating civilization that, in terms of political philosophy, was well ahead of its time. The notion of checks and balances, in which each branch of government limits the other’s power, emerged in England in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. But by the 1670s, and likely before, pirates were developing democratic charters, establishing balance of power on their ships, and developing a nascent form of worker’s compensation: A lost limb entitled one to payment from the booty, more or less depending on whether it was a right arm, a left arm, or a leg.
The idea of enlightened piracy is strange swill to swallow for those steeped in a pop culture version of the pirate – chaos on the high seas, drinking and pillaging, damsels forced onto the plank. Sure, there’s something about the independence of piracy that still speaks to people today. (Even the founders of International Talk Like a Pirate Day acknowledge that there is, in people who love to say “Aargh,” a yearning for a certain kind of freedom.) But it turns out that pirate life was more than just greedy rebellion. It offers insights into the nature of democracy and the reasons it might emerge – as a natural state of being, or a rational response to a much less pleasant way of life.
Of course, those were largely pirates of the Anglosphere. Somehow, I suspect that Somali Muslims might generate a different kind of pirate society.
This is very ahistorical. in fact these pirates, English but also western Europeans in general came from societies that had experience in a wide variety of self-governing, representative rule-based social organizations from medieval times onward. Guilds were like this; most English villages elected aldermen on substantially wider franchises than the Parliamenrary one; and there were a wide variety of lodges, mutual-aid societies, religious-oriented non-clerical organizations, etc. etc. At the end of the middle ages much of this was lost on the Continent as states centralized and became more bureaucratic and authoritarian, but they not only survived but expanded their functions in England. Many pirates had started out as letter-of-marque ships, or privateers (i.e., for-profit corporations licensed to capture enemy shipping in wartime) who experienced a certain amount of, shall we say, mission creep in the course of the voyage. These privateers, like all commercial ships, had “ship’s articles” — contracts that specified compensation, working conditions, duties, and penalties. if you read Moby Dick the narrator describes in some detail the terms and conditions under which he signs on with the whaler Pequod; these were typical in all non-governmental ships. Pirates just kept using these arrangements when they left the legitimate world of privateering, probably because they were used to them, and saw that they were effective. They didn’t invent these forms, they adapted existing ones. Hardly a “state of nature”.
A few years ago I tried to start a science-fiction story about an independent cargo starship that had a form of ship’s articles, and I described them in action as the ship’s crew recovered from a bloody mutiny that cost them a bunch of people.
I’m not sure where I learned about the concept but it wasn’t new to me when I started writing that story, and I don’t think I got it from pirates. š
privateers were much like wall street banks,
the captain got 90% of the share while the
crew got 10% of the share because the captain
had in in with the king.
Pirates were much more like social cooperatives.
The captain got a double share, each crew member
got a single share in large part because there was
no mandate from the crown.
The risks were the same, but the political ties
were different. Pirates were much better deals
for the crew, Privateers were much better
deals for the captains
Some see it as an ‘army for the stateless:’
http://io9.com/5205884/could-pirates-become-an-army-for-the-stateless?skyline=true&s=x
…though I think the logic is a tad shaky.
When that scribbler for the Boston Globule crayoned, “damsels forced onto the plank,” what was she chronicling, a cheap Warner Brothers cartoon knock-off?
Sheesh. Feminists — they make it up as they go along.
Actually, Rand, a good chunk of muslim Somilia *has* managed to turn itself into a relatively liberal multi-party democracy, without the slightest bit of help or recognition from the West. Google for Somaliland for more about that. This isn’t the same piece of Somila that’s sending out pirates, but it goes to show that the democratic instinct is not unknown there.
That’s the thing which burns me up about so much of the West’s treatment of both islam and Africa, in regard to both media and national policy: when there’s pirates or Jihadis to talk about, they’re all over it. But when a bunch of African muslims manage to put together a stable multi-party democracy? The silence is utterly deafening.
I canāt wait to see this movie! I was hoping someone would be giving Universal a clue as to what a good story line is. In my opinion they forgot what it was after āJurassic Park IIIā. Maybe Iām wrong, but I think you can be the reminder of what an awesome storyline looks like. Donāt worry about your hoarse voice Phil, it will all be worth it in the end. Imagine, the people you can reach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Thanks for moving like a jellyfish in the sea of Godās will Phil.