Lew Rockwell.com featured an article entitled Robin Hood: Why Ayn Rand Got It Wrong
. . . In one of the most memorable passages of her novel Atlas Shrugged she has one of her major characters, Ragnar Danneskjold, condemn Robin Hood in the harshest and most vindictive manner.
But Rand got it wrong. In the TV series which aired contemporaneously to the publication of her novel, Robin and his band are not the proto-Marxist proletarian plunderers of the productive rich and despoilers of private property but are actually defenders of justice in property titles, the rule of law, and the non-aggression principle. Virtually every episode is replete with imaginative tales of rebellious Saxon peasants battling against Norman tyranny and taxation by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his minions acting as the corrupt arms of the State.
I recommend all Randroids not paralyzed from the neck up “objectively” read Robin Hood: People’s Outlaw and Forest Hero: A Graphic Guide, by the scholar and masterful left-wing propagandist Paul Buhle. It is a delightful, unrepentant, and informative exploration of the Robin Hood legend and why the tales of his exploits have remained popular for centuries.
Picking the 1956 episode of “The Adventures of Robin Hood: Outlaw Money (embedded in spoiler),
Charles Burris uses Robin Hood exposing the Sheriff and his hand picked minter for debasing the currency as an example of setting things right. An admirable deed, were this the extent of the tale. What about the rest of the story?
I’ve not read the referenced book. But I did find a documentary done by History.Com exploring historic references that give rise to the popular stories of Robin Hood. (Embeded in spoiler)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy1Zrv3CBts&feature=player_detailpage
According to this, it is inconclusive if Robin Hood is an actual individual, or a legend blended together of several outlaws over time eventually becoming a ballad repeated at pubs or gatherings, passed down over generation before being committed to writing.
Accused of robbing and murdering both government agents and rich people –how the wealth was gathered to be robbed is more explicit in the case of one, while left implicit in the other. He may even have been captured at one point and imprisoned, and freed by his accomplices. Far from the non-aggression principle, Robin Hood is a master of several arms and described as a violent yeoman. The aim of giving the loot to the poor was glossed over.
Unlike the development of the Magna Carta, securing its place in history as an intellectual achievement moving the cause of liberty forward, Robin Hood is best remembered for taking from the rich and giving to the poor, not for upholding the principle of individual rights and seeking justice.
In Outlaw Money, when Henry asked Robin Hood whose family silver was in the bag, Robin Hood said it’s not important. Not important? Are we to draw the conclusion that it is right to take another’s family silver? Is the conclusion to be that because a family has silver, it must be ill-gotten gains? Another omission in how he acquired it. It is not mentioned that he “took” it, a term more palatable than “stealing” if trying to cloak criminal activity.
Note the contrast to Ragnar’s explicit identification of only targeting looted wealth to be seized for repatriation. Rand makes explicit what Robin Hood leaves implicit.
When Henry dismisses the source of the family silver, does the minting of an honest coin repudiate using ill-gained specie? Henry further complicates the issue by impersonating the currency comptroller. True to form, another questionable activity culminating in exposing the debased currency of Nottingham before the witnesses.
Rand’s identification of altruism as an immoral code allowed her to distinguish and differentiate between monies acquired morally and money obtained immorally, and concretized it in the character-event developments of Atlas Shrugged.
The Adventures of Robin Hood are a sugarcoated poison. Atlas Shrugged is an anecdotal antidote.
That certainly concertizes the title. Now you have me wondering how I overlooked that little gem whilst gathering this other material.