The Robin Hood of myth and legend is said to have robbed from the rich to give to the poor. He was a hero to ordinary folk and a criminal to those in power. These days, we’d brand Robin and his Merry Men “terrorists.”
In The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle, the author writes of Robin and his band saying: “they vowed that even as they themselves had been despoiled they would despoil their oppressors, whether baron, abbot, knight, or squire, and that from each they would take that which had been wrung from the poor by unjust taxes, or land rents, or in wrongful fines. But to the poor folk they would give a helping hand in need and trouble, and would return to them that which had been unjustly taken from them.”
Robin’s England had a feudal system of government. The king, putatively the chief feudal lord, was often just a figurehead. The real rulers were the lords and barons who each administered their own estates and territories, levying taxes and fines, administering justice as they saw fit and demanding fealty from their vassals. Peasants worked their lands and were taxed by their respective lords.
Each lord maintained the equivalent of a military or police force of knights to protect his domain, to dispense justice and to ensure collection of taxes and so on.
The church also wielded great power in the England of Robin’s day and the church grew to be exceedingly rich, richer even than the lords and kings. (Their great cathedrals are testament to this.) Rather than risk going to hell, peasants tithed to the church and paid for baptisms, burials and assorted other services rather than risk eternal damnation.
Thus, the lords, barons, abbots, knights and squires were effectively the government of their day. Not coincidentally, they were pretty much the only rich people as well.
Robin Hood was not so much robbing “the rich” as he was robbing the government that had exploited working class people. He returned to them “that which had been unjustly taken from them.”
Robin had nothing against “the rich” as such. In The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Robin actually loans money to a knight, Sir Richard, to help him save his estate from evil exploiters. It is the exploiters whom Robin detested. It just so happened that most of these, in the England of Robin’s day, were the ruling class — the government.
We have no lords or barons in America, but we do have exploiters, and these are in fact government agents. Government at all levels consumes some 40-50% of everything we Americans produce. If that’s not exploitation, I don’t know what is.
Neither General Motors nor IBM can compel us to pay them money, but government can. Neither AT&T nor Colgate-Palmolive can send out teams of armed enforcers to collect tribute, but government can. Donald Trump cannot seize properties for non-payment of taxes, but government can.
The next time you think about Robin Hood “robbing the rich to help the poor,” just remember what he was really doing — fighting back against an unjust, exploitive government.