Pirates and Anarchy
In the late nineteenth century, Europe saw a rise in a philosophy that encompassed government, economy, and life as an individual all in one. Authors wrote about a society in which human life was not worth an hourly wage or a life of servitude to a few men riding on the exploitation of thousands. These men wrote about systems to be organized that would unite the working class under one cause: freedom.
This philosophy was called Anarchism. With ideals based on collective ownership of production, direct democracy, and a classless society, it seemed the perfect life for many, and was fought for by many. Anarchism was a radical idea at that time, and surprisingly was still over a thousand years old. One of the first recorded anarchist philosophies can be found in the ancient chinese book, Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tze. Anarchist literature didn't see an advocation of revolution expressed in essays and books until the nineteenth century in Europe. But, nearly two centuries earlier, anarchism rose like the waves of the sea. It became a major philosophy, if not even consciously, in the Golden Age of Piracy.
First, to observe and understand a pirate's relationship with anarchism, one has to understand the conditions from which modern anarchism grows. With imperialism on the rise, the ruling classes had their eyes set on the globe before them and no attention was paid to the men who were building their houses, their ships, their swords, and their fortune. It was these men that were being trod upon daily, going home poor and dirty, often sick with no money for a doctor. Death was not uncommonly caused by a man's job. Imperialism brought goods harvested from overseas by slaves and sold by the merchants in the homelands. Trade by sea was a booming business.
These conditions had many men, and women, observing their own role in all of this conquering, trade, wealth, and power. What they saw was an exploitation of human labor, carried out by the ruling class, that stole from the very foundation of society. These men and women decided they had had enough of exploitation and criminal theft. They swore to a life of stealing back from whom they had made life easy for off of their sweat and blood and to treat their fellow commoner with respect. This was the life of a pirate. The pirates choice of action was to dismiss identity to a nation and ride the seas. The sea was ideal for their situation, because not only were they not within a countries borders, but the merchant ships which passed back and forth across them held goods which were being traded and sold off of the backs of the working class worldwide.
A crew of a pirate ship was radically different from that of a navy ship of the day. On a navy ship, the captain had authority over all and everything going on within the ship, and every decision made by him was to be followed without question or critique. He was a captain who was appointed his rank by climbing up through the hierarchical ropes of the military. Aboard a pirate ship, on the other hand, the captain was elected, and every decision was made collectively through discussion among the crew. Decisions, including what route to take, when to weigh anchor, where to make port, were come about completely democratically through the direct involvement of every crew member, and the only time this was not true was during battle. The captain was given his own quarters, but it was not his personal space. The crew could come and go as they pleased, use it for meetings, or sleep in it whenever they wished. If the captain ever tried to abuse his power over the crew, the crew would put into practice their power over the captain, by electing him out of office, and in a new one.
Pirates made port at small islands often referred to as "temporary autonomous zones". Ports which were, like the ship, run directly by the entire populace of the town. The ports worked separately from the imperialist nations at the time and identified with no country and no political boundaries.
Seen often in pirate ships and societies was the lack of prejudice. At a time when the power laid in the hands of white, wealthy, land owning, rank holding, men, pirate communities ran perfectly efficient with the help of men, and women, from all over the world. The color of the skin or the gender of the person had no bearing on decision making or acceptance.
A great myth about pirates regards their habits as thieves. While it is true that the life of the pirate consisted mostly of riding the seas on a stolen ship, searching for merchant ships to rob, the myth that pirates were blood thirsty savages who would steal from any ship they laid eyes on, even another pirate ship is, right out, not true. It was within the values, and the very embodiment, of what it meant to be a pirate, that the only ships to be stolen from were those flying the flag of a current imperialist power. Along with the "myth of the common thief" is that when looting a ship, it was a free for all, and that a pirate will keep all what he takes for himself. Again, this is not true. The bounty collected from every raid was split evenly throughout everyone on the ship regardless of race or sex.
When observing pirates and their ideals, one can look no further than the very Utopia of their times, said to be located on the island of Madagascar. Her name was Libertalia. The name, even, derived from the word "liberty" represented true freedom. A city in which making port was free, taxes were not collected, class was nonexistent, and every person worked for the better of the community. It was a city of direct democracy, where every residence had a say in every decision. It was, even by its name, a city of freedom.
In a time where exploitation was a daily issue of every man's life, and women were kept inside only to be wed to a chosen man, and kept inside by him evermore, where if you happened to be from a country who is controlled by a ruling nation, you are a slave to this nation without pay and without regard of worth of human life, great bands of working class men and women took to the sea by ships which they built, yet were stolen right from their very hands as they built it, seized them back and continued to steal from the ruling class which had stolen from them for so long. Although they may not have been consciously participating in the theories of authors from two centuries later, they were original truly democratic thinkers, and original revolutionary anarchists. They were the Robin Hoods of their time. They were pirates.
gave my 2 week's notice at papa john's today.