Pirate Utopia
Description
From the Wikipedia:
"Pirate utopias were described by anarchist writer Peter Lamborn Wilson, who coined the term, in his 1995 book Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes as secret islands once used for supply purposes by pirates. Wilson's concept is largely based on speculation and as he even admits a bit of fantasy. In Wilson's view, these pirate enclaves were early forms of autonomous proto-anarchist societies in that they operated beyond the reach of governments and embraced unrestricted freedom." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_utopia)
Discussion
Dominique Weber:
"According to Marcus Rediker, the contemporary historian of piracy, "piracy amounts to large-scale criminality. It was also a way of life voluntarily adopted, in most cases, by a large number of men who openly defied the rules of a society from which they excluded themselves."[34] The recent historical re-evaluation of piracy has raised the notion of the "pirate Utopia", both in terms of religious practices, in particular freedom of religion and tolerance,[35] and in terms of economic and social matters, with egalitarianism being practiced in the sharing of resources and dividing up of spoils. According to Daniel Defoe, the "code" of Bartholomew Roberts's crew, stipulated that "the captain and the quartermaster shall each receive two shares of a prize; the master gunner and boatswain one and one half shares, all other officers one and one quarter".[36] The pirate utopia also involved mutual assistance and the acknowledgment of incapacity. This same "code" stated that "if [...] any man should lose a limb, or become a cripple in their service, he was to have eight hundred dollars, out of the public stock, and for lesser hurts, proportionately."
The pirate utopia extended to behaviour and morals, particularly with regard to the status of women. We might recall the colourful portraits, in Chapter VIII of Defoe's General History of the Pyrates, of Mary Read and Anne Bonny.[38] It even touched on the political, particularly with regard to the abolition of slavery. For Captain Misson, a semi-fictional character created by Defoe who possesses an egalitarian and universalist conception of human nature, slavery is incompatible with natural justice and religion. [39] Above all, however, the pirate utopia entailed democratic ideals, questioning authority as well as discipline. Article I of Roberts's ship's charter stated that "Every man has a vote in affairs of moment" and "has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors".[40]
Of course, we must not forget Defoe's account in his General History, of "Libertalia", the utopian republic established in Madagascar by Misson and, in particular, the speech by the monk Caraccioli on "political matters":
- [Caraccioli] shewed that every Man was born free, and had as much Right to what would support him, as to the Air he respired. A contrary Way of arguing would be accusing the Deity with Cruelty and Injustice, for he brought into the World no Man to pass a Life of Penury.
It is necessary, then, to take issue with Schmitt's view and suggest that piracy is certainly a political phenomenon and can, moreover, be defined as such in terms of Schmitt's own criterion for what is political, namely the distinction between friend and enemy.
This would likewise be suggested by a retort made by Captain Samuel Bellamy in Chapter XXVIII of Defoe's General History:
- D***n ye, I am a free Prince, and I have as much Authority to make War on the whole World, as he who has a Hundred Sail of Ships at Sea, and an Army of 100,000 Men in the Field: and this my Conscience tells me.
The crucial point is that pirates do not go to sea in the same way as other sailors. If they have resolved to take leave of the terrestrial world, they have done so in a more profound sense than merely as a form of exile. They have left behind the world on which Man has imposed his rule, his compass, his plumb-line, his land-registry, his lists, his civil laws. When they sail the seas, their aim is to proclaim the existence of the yawning gulf that separates the continents, the victory of water over land, of geography over civilization, of primordial order over the order imposed by engineers."
(http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2012-07-13-weber-en.html)