Comment on Makes sense
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 day agoI don’t think pirates really worried about laundering any booty. What for? They weren’t worried about the IRS, nor would people generally have qualms about where someone’s gold/silverm/wares might have come from, methinks.
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days. Just because modern taxation didn’t exist, it didn’t mean that people didn’t ask ‘hey where did you get the money from?’
There have been cases as far back as Ancient Egypt where robbers were caught because they suddenly had access to large amounts of money they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think it involved a group of people who robbed a Pharoah’s tomb. It has been decades since I read about it so I could be off.
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days.
By whom, exactly? The states too weak to invade and take control of pirate havens?
"hey where did you get the money from?’
“fuck off, that’s where”
Uuu so challenging this “monkey laundering” in the 1700’s.
Bank notes didn’t practically exist. Money was actually gold or silver. Moneys laundering as a concept is from the 1920’s from mafia who lived under a states rule.
I imagine that England sending letters to pirated saying “hey guys we need you to pay your taxes and also please come back to England so we can hang you for piracy” would’ve gotten similar responses as what the pirates over at pirate-bay in the modern world gave to a similar power, only in modern parliance.
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth.
It’s not paying taxes but producing plausibility that laundering provides.
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth
And what sort of a fool would live under some state’s power while actively practicing piracy?
You’re just gonna get the crew to drop you off after four to see your wife and kids? Take the weekend off, park the sloop harbor?
Pirates didn’t participate in high society. Or any state-sponsored society for that matter. They had their own societies.
They still needed to interact with society. Do you think most ports weren’t controlled by some kind of authority that you’d have to get some kind of either favor or believability with?
Pirates weren’t pirates just to pirate things… not the successful ones, anyways.
To think they’d have no need to enage with normal society is … just silly.
Honestly, it’s now been a few decades and gonna have to say, even if I feel like an old man yelling at the skies, it does feel like people on the internet just used to be smarter and humbler.
I just linked you two articles which detail almost a century of the golden age of piracy, during which private havens, aka complete societies which were either under weak states which tolerated/allowed or even sponsored piracy, or completely self governing communities. Either way, they were complete communities. There are people who lived their entire lived in cities like Port Royal and Tortuga.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Piracy
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_haven
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortuga_(Haiti)
Tortuga is 183 square kilometres. These weren’t tiny outposts in which pirates hid from the authorities. They were prosperous and wild, but complete societies.
To not even glimpse at the basic material when it’s literally shoved in your face, yet still have the gall to argue as if you knew the subject? The internet was better 25-20 years ago without the normies.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If you got a pile of gold, someone somewhere will want to know where it came from. A powerful somebody who will be looking for any excuse to confiscate it. For the public good of course!
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If you got a pile of gold, you have something of inherent value, which you could, for instance melt down into bars.
If you have something worth a lot of money, you’ll always find someone to buy it.
You’re really thinking more like someone having stolen the Mona-Lisa in the 21st century than pirates plundering raw wares and possibly some valuables.
Hell a bit more than a hundred years ago a servant could rather easily, if they wanted, just steal all the jewelry and valuables of their mistress and if they actually went further than like 100 miles from where they stole them, the chances of getting caught would be quite small. Or especially if they were actually a professional thief and knew a fence.
But pirated didn’t need to worry about any of that.
They’d just sail into a pirate haven, basically proto-anarchist societies, and they weren’t in short supply either.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Meh, we’re mostly on the same page. I wasn’t thinking so much of legit authorities acting. More like someone will want to steal that gold. Best to keep it on the down low, dole it out slowly, kinda like money laundering. Avoiding the thugs vs. avoiding the authorities? Am I making sense? I have no idea any more.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Sort of but not really. For instance a pirate ship might plunder a. merchant ship full of silk and calico and a tiny bit of gold and silver. They’d share the gold and silver, according to the articles, ie the rules of the ship. (Which were pretty strict at times, like boy’s boarding school strict.)
Then they’d sail into a favourable port, a pirate haven, like Port Royal. Sell the silk and calico, share the profit with the crew, then prolly spend some of it while the boat resupplies and then cast off to find another ship to raid.