The invisible hook: the law and economics of pirate tolerance
Leeson, P.T. (2009). The invisible hook: the law and economics of pirate tolerance. NYU Journal of Law & Liberty 4(2): 139-171
In: New York University Journal of Law & Liberty. New York University: New York. ISSN 1930-5044, more
|
| Keywords |
Pirates > Piracy
Marine/Coastal |
| Abstract |
Can criminal profit-seeking generate socially desirable outcomes?This article investigates this question by examining the economics ofpirate tolerance. At a time when British merchant ships treated blacks as slaves, some pirate ships integrated black bondsmen into their crews as full-fledged and free members. This racial tolerance was not the product of enlightened notions of equality. Rather, it was forged in the selfinterested context of the criminally-determined costs and benefits of pirate slavery. Analogous to Adam Smith’s invisible hand, whereby lawful commercial self-interest seeking can generate socially desirable outcomes, among pirates there was an “invisible hook,” whereby criminal selfinterest seeking produced a socially desirable outcome in the form of racial tolerance. |
|
