I just finished reading David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag, a brief history of pirates and how writers and films romanticized them. For those interested in reading about piracy in general, it mainly focuses on Caribbean pirates between 1500 and 1730, and only briefly touches upon piracy in other parts of the world.
The most fascinating part of the book was its comparisons between life on a merchant ship and life on a pirate ship. Being a sailor on a merchant vessel was a taxing job, to put it mildly. Because sailors were guaranteed a percentage of the profits from the ship's cargo, the investors had every incentive to undermanned the ship, thus cutting back on shares. As a result, the few sailors on board worked like dogs, each performing multiple tasks. To make matters worse, captains were effectively gods on their ship, and they were petty gods at that. It was not uncommon for captains to punish their sailors for the slightest infractions, sometimes causing death or permanent injury. And mutiny was a criminal offense punishable by death.
Pirate ships, on the other hand, were actually overmanned because they needed plenty of armed men in order to make sure that they could take any ship they came across. But in-between battles, the average pirate had little to do because there were more than enough men to handle the basic tasks of sailing (this led to a different problem, chronic drunkeness and gambling as a way to pass the time). Another advantage of being a pirate was the surprisingly democratic nature of the crew. The captain was elected and his authority was largely limited to battles. All major decisions, including where the pirates were going to strike, had to be put to a vote. Distribution of booty was also remarkably egalitarian, as the captain took only a slightly larger share than the average pirate.
No wonder so many merchant sailors took to piracy when the opportunity presented itself.
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