Avast, Me Hearties! Here Be Rational Profit Maximizers!

by hilzoy

Via FP Passport, one of those very rare (sets of) academic papers whose very existence is funny, and which is also very interesting. I give you two papers on the rationality of pirates (both pdfs, both by Peter Leeson of George Mason University): An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization, and Pirational Choice: The Economics of Infamous Pirate Practices. Personally, I found the history more interesting than the rational choice theory, though passages like this (from An-arrgh-chy) are marvelous in their way:

"Modeling this problem is straightforward. Consider a pirate ship of complete but imperfect information with a captain and two "factions" of ordinary pirates that together comprise the ship’s crew (...)"

An-arrgh-chy is the most interesting of the two. Here's the abstract:

"This paper investigates the internal governance institutions of violent criminal enterprise by examining the law, economics, and organization of pirates. To effectively organize their banditry, pirates required mechanisms to prevent internal predation, minimize crew conflict, and maximize piratical profit. I argue that pirates devised two institutions for this purpose. First, I analyze the system of piratical checks and balances that crews used to constrain captain predation. Second, I examine how pirates used democratic constitutions to minimize conflict and create piratical law and order. Remarkably, pirates adopted both of these institutions before the United States or England. Pirate governance created sufficient order and cooperation to make pirates one of the most sophisticated and successful criminal organizations in history."

It is really interesting that pirates hit on democratic government with written constitutions and a separation of powers around seventy years before Montesquieu, and a hundred years before the US. Definitely worth a read, especially if you like seventeenth-century prose. The second article (Pirationality) was less interesting to me, though it did have some pretty spectacular descriptions of pirate gruesomeness, which were, according to Leeson, designed to create a reputation for complete barbarity, thereby minimizing resistance:

"In one case, for example, the French buccaneer, L'Ollonais, could not get several stubborn Spanish prisoners to reveal the location of some valuables. In response to this obstinance he “drew his cutlass, and with it cut open the breast of one of those poor Spaniards, and pulling out his heart with his sacrilegious hands, began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous dog” (quoted in Konstam 2002: 75). (...)

Other forms of cruelty the pirates invented to punish hiding or destroying loot included cutting open a man'’s stomach, nailing one end of his intestines to the mast, and then whipping him to make him dance to his death."

Do not show this article to Charles Graner.

Comments

[Josh]

An-arrgh-chy is the most interesting of the two.

"Most"? Oh, say it ain't so!

[Slartibartfast]

Pi/2 is...pirational?

[Gary Farber]

"It is really interesting that pirates hit on democratic government with written constitutions and a separation of powers around seventy years before Montesquieu, and a hundred years before the US."

I'm picturing David Milch's take.

[Ugh]

Did you hear about that new pirate movie?

The one that's rated arrgh!

[Ted]

This entry is why I love the internet. Hilzoy is a national treasure.

[cleek]

OT: CNN says the Palestinian govt. is being dissolved.

no, not in acid.

[ken]

Question: How much does a pirate pay for corn?

Answer: A buck an ear.

[cleek]

pirates don't pay for corn, they steal it!

[Jackmormon]

L'Ollonois did have a reputation as one of the very cruelest...

[hilzoy]

I is a national buried treasure!

That's why I've spent so long trying to find myself.

[Jeff]

In one case, for example, the French buccaneer, L'Ollonais, could not get several stubborn Spanish prisoners to reveal the location of some valuables. In response to this obstinance he “drew his cutlass, and with it cut open the breast of one of those poor Spaniards, and pulling out his heart with his sacrilegious hands, began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous dog

Next season on 24, Jack Bauer travels to Barcelona where Islamofascists have built a dirty bomb to blow up in the subway. Can he get the information in time? If you thought last season was gory, wait for Pirate Jack!

[Jeff]

I is a national buried treasure!

Try reading the Declaration of Independence with red-green polarized glasses. It will help you find yourself (or give you a killer headache!).

[Dantheman]

"I is a national buried treasure!"

Does that mean you have an X tattooed upon you? Inquiring minds want to know.

[hilzoy]

Oh noes! I is Squeaky Fromme!

(NOT!, thank God.)

[Jim Parish]

A while back, I read Villains of All Nations, by Marcus Rediker, which is a book-length treatment of early 18th-century piracy. The first paper you mention seems to hit some of the same themes as Rediker's book; I found it very interesting.

[Jim Parish]

The book, that is.

[Mad Maths]

Pi/2 is...pirational?

No, Pi/2 is still an irrational number.

[SEK]

Peter Leeson can chair my department of piracy studies any day.

[Slartibartfast]

Pi/2 is still an irrational number

Ah, but if one imagines a number system base pi, then it'd be pirational.

Just what do I have to do to get Anarch's attention, anyway? I mean, I don't want to have to say Walsh Code in the spectrum auction threads.

Of course, we may be way too far on the applications end of maths for him to bother with.

[Slartibartfast]

piracy studies

That's on a circle track, no?

[Dantheman]

"but if one imagines a number system base pi, then it'd be pirational"

And here I thought pirational was a system to allocate our scarce pi resources.

Either that, or a convenient excuse to bake more pie.

[Gary Farber]

My favorite pirate was this real 9-year-old kid.

And this post is on Google's front page for "jewish pirates."

[Neil B.]

But, it isn't right to refer to maximizing your own gain as "rational" anyway. Yes, you heard me right. A totally rational being could not and would not elevate him or herself above any other individual in importance, because objectively, there is no basis for discrimination against "the other." Who is "me" and "other" is all relative, not like the genuine difference in kind between a circle and a square. A rational being would actually act in accordance with that realization, and would have to find actual substantive real differences (like, who deserves X more) for making any distinction in choice, not just appreciating the point intellectually. (I wrote about this in some NG post called "Spock was right" or somesuch several years back.)

tyrannogenius

[alecm]

"cutting open a man'’s stomach, nailing one end of his intestines to the mast, and then whipping him to make him dance to his death."

Yes, but did they know about waterboarding?

[John Emerson]

A lot of states have been founded by armed bands of the pirate type. A state monopolizes legitimate violence over a given territory, and pirates arose when there was a significant area (crossed by trade routes) which was controlled by no state. Often pirates were state-sponsored to a degree (e.g. Drake against Spain: calling him a "privateer" is a bit euphemistic). The Barbary pirates were powerful during the French/British wars up until 1814, and were extinguished once the British attained dominance. (Jean Lafitte was part of this story).

In the Mediterranean, Genoa and Venice combined trade and piracy as they fought to control the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Classical Athenian traders also could work as pirates if need be. Each trading nation protected its own ships and attacked enemy ships.

Pirates and organized criminal gangs are like proto-states or quasi-states living on the failure of the legitimate state.

I believe that some of the privateers who turned pirate (i.e., the ones who didn't quit when their state sponsors abandoned them) began their days as legitimate joint-stock companies.

[Anarch]

Jackmormon: L'Ollonois did have a reputation as one of the very cruelest...

ZOMG! A LOLlonois! Quick, to the caption machine!

Slarti: Just what do I have to do to get Anarch's attention, anyway?

Help me with this stupid summer job I've got. I just had a deadline moved up on me, requiring stuff that should have taken weeks to, oh, be done over this weekend. It's not particularly difficult but I hadn't budgeted anything close to the requisite time.

[Anarch]

BTW, Slarti? Dawwwwww (: