The Invisible Hook takes a closeup look at legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows how their search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and forward-thinking practices.Pirates understood the advantages of constitutional democracy, fifty years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an early system of workers' compensation, regulated drinking and smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality.
Professor Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice, their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects and their greedy criminality secured social order.
