[Jodavaho.io] — Josh Vander Hook

Peter T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates (Princeton University Press, 2009).

In my ongoing attempt to “try on” views of the world, philosphies, or mental models, I came across a book called Invisible Hook.

I just finished it, and I loved it, and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about pirates, but is also interested in wondering why pirates organized as they did, learn more about the strangely egalitarian practices they had, and dispell some myths about pirates as bloodthirsty lunatics.

Maybe this is all post-hoc rationalization, but the book unites basically everything a layperson might know about pirates under the banner of self-interested rationality. This is appropriate because it was written by an economist, not a historian, and that’s what makes the book so darn interesting.

Think about what you might know about pirates:

• They were brutal and anarchistic
• They had ruthless captains
• They waylaid shipping, plundering endlessly, burning captive ships and slaughtering crews
• They were barbariac womanizers
• They were maimed, sometimes eyeless, legless, handless brutes

And here’s some things you didn’t know:

• They elected their leaders, almost universally
• They practiced split power and checks and balances to keep conditions fair
• They had health and disability insurance policies that paid out handsomly
• They had trials, delegated punishments, and written codes of rules
• They had a high volunteer rate, so much so that strong laws had to be passed to keep people from joining, under punishment of death of even association.
• They practiced a racial tolerance far ahead of the norm for their historical context
• They actually rarely slaughtered crew, and provided quarter when the ship surrendered

These are all examples from the book, and there are many more.

The book does such an excellent job of simultaneously presenting and explaining these strange coincidences from the perspective of economics.

What is most hilariously revealed over the book is that the image you conjure of pirates was in fact largely created by pirates. They had a strong economic incentive to be completely terrifying, because it allowed them to avoid violence. A terrified merchant crew is more likely to surrender if they believe that surrender would spare them from slaughter.

It’s only because they cultivated this image so well that it has persisted all this time. Amazing.

There’s much more to the book than that, but the central theme of signalling (marketting) to maximize profit in a rational way is repeated over and over again, and feels much more human than the cartoonish preconceived notions allowed.

There are so many other strange examples of pirate practices that now make total sense. Did you know when pirates joined they published advertisements to announce it?

Do you know why they flew the skull and crossbones in particular?

Great book. Go grab it!