Professor, What’s Another Name for Pirate Treasure?

It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day, and here’s my annual plug to visit The Mudd’s witty homepage — more than a laugh a minute — and also to check out Peter Leeson’s excellent work s on piratical organization, The Invisible Hook.

Here’s the gist:

The idea of the invisible hook is that pirates, though they’re criminals, are still driven by their self-interest. So they were driven to build systems of government and social structures that allowed them to better pursue their criminal ends

If you don’t have time to read the whole book today, you can read one of the many favorable reviews instead.   For the more scholarly version, check out Leeson’s original Journal of Political Economy piece.