I have been reading Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty. This is not only a musing for those who enjoy pirate stories as well as an excellent historical epic describing the how Captain Morgan and his pirate army helped Cromwell and Charles II turn the favors in the New World from the receding Spanish Empire to the British. The organization of pirating and society at large in Jamaica is an historically fascinating case of collective action (yeah, pirating) achieved through extremely individualized decision-making. This was not exactly what the Spanish, nor the British, envisioned for the New World, as these excerpts indicate:
“As a young man, Cromwell had himself almost joined his Puritan brethren in their voyage to Massachusetts; the idea of founding a new and pure land had always had great appeal for him. Hispaniola was something of a second change. ‘Set up your banners in the name of Christ’”.
“Cromwell asked Thomas Gabe the preacher to write up a paper detailing how the Spanish empire in the Americas could be attacked and overthrown. Cromwell had no intelligence service, no spies, to rely on: Gage was it. [---] Gage predicted that an invasion of Hispaniola, followed by Cuba, would result in the toppling of Spain’s Central American kingdom”
“Twenty-nine year since he first sailed to the Americas [Gabe---] was again on a religious mission: to exterminate Catholics from the new world and to claim it for Protestantism [---] but he little realized that the war he was relishing would take a far different shape: It would be a confrontation not between two traditional faiths but between two radically different visions of men and society. Cromwell’s ‘Banner of Christ; had been folded up and put away; in their place would come the flag of the pirates, whose way of life was utterly foreign to both Catholics and Protestants. Port Royal would not mark the beginning of Spain’s replacement with another theocratic empire. The town and its pirates would follow another path, once focused more intensely on the individual than on the kingdom of belief”
Indeed, the life and workings of pirates and buccaneers remained characterized by highly individualized decision-making, quite an achievement given that the pirates also managed to organize themselves into very efficient criminal warfare ventures. This organizing is discussed in a recent issue of Journal of Political Economy by Peter Leeson. Leeson’s explanation is that pirate organizations were indeed highly individualized and used both political checks- and balances and democratic constitutions to balance the need for autocratic power for ships captains’ efficient managing of the plundering campaigns on the one hand, while minimize the risk of internal predation and conflict on the other. Leeson portrays his paper as a case study in functioning anarchy, but an interesting sociological point of his paper is the ethnic diversity of pirate organizations, according to Leeson’s historical records the racial composition of ships varied between 13 and 98 percent black. Further, there seem to have been quite some class diversity as well (especially among the buccaneers) with also highly educated persons joining pirate crews. Thus, both the organizing and the demographic structure of pirate groups differed radically from their organizations – from what I remember of my little industrial sociology it took far into the 20th century until organizations became ethnically mixed. The diversity of pirate ventures can be seen in the comparative light of the homophilic structure of modern entrepreneurial ventures, most of which are very homogenous in terms of ethnicity, education and gender (see e.g. the work by Howard Aldrich, Martin Ruef, and Karin Hellerstedt). This begs some interesting questions: to what extent were 16th century pirates more equal in their organizations than other criminal organizations throughout history? And did their egalitarian decision-making structure contribute to their success in warfare against the vast more resourceful fleets of Spain and Enland?
There might be historical studies tending to these questions but I have yet to see an example of contemporary organization operating at par with the historical pirate ventures in maintaining democratic decision-making together with high efficiency. However, an interesting recent paper address the organizing efforts of what some consider the “modern” pirate – hackers and coders. The study, written by Linus Dahlander and Siobhán O’Mahony shows how coders created a virtual community where everyone could contribute code to a project. As the community grew, the need to formalize organization became apparent since it was impossible to “freeze” the development of a project and thus launch it as a completed product. The community therefore elected a governing board whose decision could overrule those of ordinary member, much like ordinary corporations. Dahlander and O’Mahony show how evolving political processes affect the ways in which, first, coders became accepted as members, and subsequently, which members became elected to the board. Using network analysis, they find that individuals that frequently contribute code are more likely to be elected to the board, but contributing code has no effect on the probability of becoming a board member. Rather, being an early member in the growing network, “socializing” by being active on the electronic discussion boards, and last but not least, being male led members to become elected to the board. And is it not ironic that the coders of these seemingly “anarchistic” modern network organizations quickly adapt to formal decision structures and gender discrimination – much like the organizations they so vehemently criticized?
Maybe we haven’t come so far since the pirate ages. Comments welcome.
Posted by karlwennberg 
