Once again Talk Like a Pirate Day, meaning that it’s time to send you over to the The Mudd’s witty homepage— more than a laugh a minute.
The Big question on everyone’s mind today seems to be what impact will Talk Like a Pirate Day have on the President’s Convocation Speech?
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.
It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day over at The Mudd, and elsewhere.
As I told you last year, Peter Leeson has an excellent series of papers on piratical organization, including The Invisible Hook, an economic analysis of piratical organization. You can also check out the JPE piece it was based on or simply get a flavor from one of its many favorable reviews.
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.
Certainly the big eye opener is that classic pirates had democratic governance structures. I would guess that most organized crime we think of today — including modern-day pirates is more conventionally hierarchical. Watch for this in Econ 450.
It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day over at The Mudd, and elsewhere.
Perhaps you should celebrate by reading Peter Leeson’s The Invisible Hook, an economic analysis of piratical organization. Or perhaps the JPE piece it was based on. Or even one of its many favorable reviews.
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.
I read this over the summer and found it interesting that the classic pirates created reasonably democratic governance structures with built-in checks and balances, whereas most organized crime we think of today — including modern-day pirates, I’d guess — is more conventionally hierarchical.
