"the attribution of the invention to democracy to the Greeks flies in the face of a vast amount of empirical evidence. In fact democracy was invented independently in many parts of the world on many different occasions just like farming was."
example of indy emergence
18th century corsair charters of "incorporation"
"Every Man has a vote in the Affairs of Moment;
has equal Title to the fresh Provisions, or strong Liquors,
at any Time seized,
and may use them at Pleasure,
unless a Scarcity make it necessary,
for the Good of all, to vote a Retrenchment"
"The Captain and Quarter-Master receive two Shares of a Prize"
" the Master, Boatswain, and Gunner, one Share and a half "
" other Officers one and a Quarter."
pretty compressed pretty flat set up eh ?
---------------------
where'd that come from ?
""Our"" " hypothesis" :
"what distinguished pirates from much of the rest of society at the time "
" the distribution of de facto political power"
"The lower strata of society until the 19th century did not have much de facto power pretty much anywhere in the world around that time"
" so"
" they could not make effective demands for a level playing field or for direct economic transfers or for political change meant to support these economic outcomes."
" As a result"
" no need for those currently holding de facto and de jure power
to make concessions to them"
"particularly political concessions
to further increase their political power and participation."
"This was possibly different among pirates: all pirates had cutlasses."
" one-man-one-cutlass drove one-man-one-vote "
--------------------------------------------------------------
-----concession to causal complexity--
" there are other factors that may have made a democratic organization less costly among pirates than for other businesses. "
"For example"
" a democratic organization on the factory floor"
"by shifting the ex post say on pay and profits to workers
may make it
harder for the ex ante investments of the entrepreneur
to be rewarded."
