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Investing in Pirates

reuters.com

32 pointshuangm21 comments

"'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony."

I can't imagine how you go about getting a divorce in a country with no gov't and thus no court. Do you draw a line in the sand and say everything on this side is mine?

Large parts of Somalia are governed by local Muslim groups. While divorce is not common in Islam and is generally condemned, it is possible in certain circumstances none the less. I imagine that the local religious leader can arrange a divorce, according to the Shari'ah.

The triple talaq is a mechanism for divorce which exists in some forms of Islam. It simply consists of the husband saying the phrase I divorce you (Arabic:talaq) to the wife, three times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_talaq

I definitely like the idea.

The "triple talaq" is not as simple as just saying "talaq, talaq, talaq". First, it is generally condemned. Second, there must be a month between each "talaq", so the whole procedure takes up at least two months. For more info, see http://www.religioustolerance.org/mohd.htm

The catholics also do divorce sometimes. Though they do so by pretending that the marriage did never exist in the first place.

This is an incorrect presentation of data. The process you describe is Anullment. The Catholic church permits the standard definition of divorce, but does not allow remarriage while the divorced spouse is still alive.

OK, thanks.

Marriage is, in many cultures, primarily a religious institution more than a state-governed issue.

What I don't understand about investing in criminal activities is what's stopping them from taking the money and running. It seems to me that once you've done one job, you'll have plenty of money to continue your activities. Is it that other pirates will come after you, or is there just an insane amount of overhead that I don't see?

I say let anarchy in Somalia run it's course. Notarized contracts will need to be drawn. A system of jurisprudence will need to be set up to enforce them. Pretty soon they will arrive to a social contract with a state (or something resembling a state backed by the big fish in that pond).

Don't be so naive. A "social contract" can only exist if there's a large enough middle class, which is something Somalia (and East Africa in general) lacks. Unfortunately a more likely outcome will be the emergence of a few local warlords and a particularly bloody tribal war and a total humanitarian disaster.

Don't forget that things have changed since the creation of "social contracts" in modern Western nations; genocide is a lot cheaper and simpler to execute than it used to be. These days all you need is to put four men equipped with cheap Russian-made machine guns into a jeep and they will exterminate a dozen villages in the course of an afternoon without breaking a sweat.

I stand corrected. I failed to take into account the effectiveness and efficiency of modern weapons. They assign disproportionate power to the top of the thugocracy (Saddam Hussein being an extreme example). Such a thugocracy can propagate itself brutally, suppressing the trickling down of wealth and development.

The question that follows (and that I honestly don't know the answer to) is whether the invention of modern weapons was a historical tipping point that obliterated previous routes of national economic development. What if mechanized warfare had been invented before the rise of the West by a non-Western civilization and transferred (via trade) to the medieval European feudal lords. Would they have allowed the rise of the middle class in the West the way it did?

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do" -- Samuel Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p. 51.

Hard to tell. If you ask me, I think that if the invention of modern warfare happened before the Thirty Year's War and the subsequent Peace of Westphalia (which created the modern West as we know it) then the Thirt Year's war would have been a lot bloodier and more violent, not unlike the current tribal wars in Africa but on the scale of the World Wars. Eventually someone would have won it but the West would have became a lot weaker than it is (due to the destruction and death toll), making the world a lot more multipolar.

This is, of course, worthless crystal ball history, but that's my two cents.

What is it with libertarians thinking Somalia is some kind of free-market paradise? Functioning courts are necessary condition for a free market, you know.

I think the more giant gaping hole in logic is how much power gangs have in an anarchy society. If you're interested in maximizing your personal resources, the best way to do it is to terrorize and extort your fellow citizens through violent collusion (see: Mafia in Italy).

Anarcho-libertarians obsess on positive liberties while totally disregarding negative liberties. They seem to think living in fear of violent, extremist gangs is just fine, as long as nobody's forcing you to pay taxes.

Thus far, it seems like most of this piracy has affected commercial shipping and civilian vessels. It seems likely that eventually, somebody is going to hijack the wrong boat and the owners will turn out to be willing to retaliate with excessive force, at which point innocent bystanders - for example, anyone else living in Haradheere - will get dragged into the conflict and lose their lives as a result.

> somebody is going to hijack the wrong boat and the owners will turn out to be willing to retaliate with excessive force

It's been known to happen: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/l...

I talked with a shipping guy a while ago - they are used to paying "fines" of 25K up just to pass through. He also said that they never arm the ships - it would just lead to escalation and he did not want his crews harmed.

The ransom amount is minute compared to the value of the goods on board. It's gotten to the point where it's a regular business. You don't expect or assume they will start randomly gunning people down. Just pay the money and get the hell outta there.

I also assume the pirates sort of know what they are looking for. It's pretty obvious which ships are armed navies and which aren't. Private companies aren't allowed to level a city unless the management want to be dragged down to the Hague for some 'splaining.

And any cargo that is worth defending (nuclear, weapons, etc.) can hire mercenaries like Blackwater.

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