pirates

Governance in Pirate Societies

We command honest men’s adoration.

from Center for a Stateless Society

How Cost-Benefit Considerations Produced “Progressive” Governance in Pirate Societies

by Emile Phaneuf

Without economics, Leeson writes, pirates are “sadistic pacifists; womanizing homosexuals; treasure-lusting socialists; and madmen who outwitted the authorities. They’re stealthy outlaws who loudly announced their presence with flags of skulls and bones. They’re libertarians who conscripted nearly all their members, democrats with dictatorial captains, and lawless anarchists who lived by a strict code of rules. They’re torturous terrorists who command honest men’s adoration.”

What Pirates Taught Me About Anarchism

tango down

From A Beautiful Resistance (Gods and Radicals Press) by John Halstead

Anarchism for Civilians series

This is part of a series introducing aspects of anarchism for those new to the idea. As I wrote in Part 1, it is inevitable that there will be some people who will disagree with my representation of anarchism here. And I could never do justice to the complexity of anarchism. So rather than attempting any kind of authoritative definition of anarchism (which would really be contrary to the spirit of the thing), I want instead to dispel some of the myths that I had to unlearn in order to grasp what anarchism is about—this time by talking about what I learned from pirates.

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