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The Hidden Economics of Pirates
Princeton University Press
May 2009
On Sale: April 20, 2009
296 pages
ISBN: 0691137471
EAN: 9780691137476
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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.
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