Pirate pioneers of democracy
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
There is a great article over at NPR on 18th century pirates pioneering stable governance systems while traditional governments were still under monarchies. The pirates followed a system of constitutional democracy and some even were known to have injury insurance. The media continues to prey on how these pirates are ruthless, heartless Somali’s intent on destroying our capitalistic way of trade via shipping routes. I would view them as the outcome of a failed state. They opted for this career in an attempt to make a living. Most of the pirates were fisherman before switching careers. Somalia has had one ineffective government after another in its recent history. The greatest period of peace was achieved when an islamic rebel group took over southern Somalia in June of 2006 but because of the United States fear of Islamic rule and potential Islamic fanaticism we moved quickly to dismantle it. The U.S. supported and urged Ethiopia (with weapons, training, and huge amounts of funding) to invade Somalia under guise of a partnership with the failing secular Somalian government. I would argue that the following continued deterioration in stability caused a weakened economy and pushed fisherman into poverty. Pirating is an optimal choice economically for these pirates and will continue until effective governance is in place in Somalia or policing of the coast has increased to such a degree to make piracy ineffective.
Yes there is probably a few people working as a pirate that are “bad”, “unjust”, “scallywags” but so are there those among us “civilized” americans, as we saw with AIG or Madoff. People move to improve their situation by taking on risk when it is not always prudent. But the idea of a huge reward can blind and cause us not to weigh the risks effectively. Or if the risks had been weighed effectively they might just not have got lucky.
