That's not entirely true. Some were, sure, but it also depends on your perspective. Piracy was a way to wage war against foreign powers without openly declaring it. For example here is a Letter of Marque granted to Henry Morgan (the Captain Morgan) by the governor of Jamaica: http://www.piratedocuments.com/Letters%20of%20Marque/henry_m.... To the Spanish he was a pirate, but to the English he was a hero fighting against the Black Legend. Sir Francis Drake is another example of this. A really fun book if you're interested is Empire of Blue Water - http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Blue-Water-Americas-Catastrophe.... If you read it you'll see that pirates were actually a lot closer to modern entrepreneurs than you might think, except they operated in a much less regulated system.