# Ep. 19: Reasonable Crimes: Humanizing Pirates **URL:** **By** Peter T. Leeson, Anthony Comegna **Published:** September 5, 2017 --- Are all human beings merely economic maximizers? Can all human actions really be explained in terms of profit, loss, and calculation? Peter Leeson is the Duncan Black Professor of Economics and Law at George Mason University. His work often reads as forays into high weirdness, voyages to strange unknown countries penetrated only by the light of economic reasoning. [Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. Princeton University Press. 2011.](https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hook-Hidden-Economics-Pirates/dp/0691150095) [WTF?! An Economic Tour of the Weird. Stanford University Press. 2017.](http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28090)