Werd: Pirate - Part Four

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Editorials, History, US Economy

So in case some of you didn’t get the subtle satire, Part Three of this week’s Werd said that pirates can’t exist without capitalists.  If we want capitalism, we should expect pirates; if we want to rid ourselves of pirates, all of the laws and security in the world won’t ever get rid of them, so long as we still cling to capitalism. 

Today I received my copy of the January issue of Harper’s Magazine.  The very first entry I read is by former Editor-in-Chief Lewis H. Lapham, who writes about the financial crisis, etc.  Spurred by Thomas Friedman’s myopic quote that says Americans need to get back to their roots and “thinking about how—not just how much,” Lapham notes that the foundation of America’s independence from Britain was largely due to America’s embrace of privateers, who attacked British merchant ships and sold the profits of the booty to the French to support the revolution.  Loathe as I am to include huge block quotes of pirated text, I can’t help but reprint part of Lapham’s opening editorial that relates directly to this week’s Werd and essentially proves the subtle slants of arguments about pirates that I have been setting up all week.^[1] Lapham, better than I, writes my perfect and fitting conclusion.  Here we go…:

Click to continue reading Werd: Pirate - Part Four

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