Robin Hood's Crime?

Atlas Shrugged

Robin Hood's Crime?

Guvmint Cheese 10-19-2007, 2:18 PM
Hi, first, I want to say that I just stumbled on this forum, and I think it's very informative. I'm on my fifth read of Atlas, and I just came upon Ragnar's "Robin Hood" speech. I have tried to come to terms with it, but I'm at a loss.

The crime that Robin Hood has committed is that he "robbed from the rich and gave to the poor." The question I have is whether that's a fair assessment of his activities. Robin Hood takes place circa 1200 in feudal England, a country run by lords and barons (which I read as "the government") who received their lands not by the fruits of their labor but by the spoils of war. The feudal system was effectively thrust upon many of England's inhabitants of the time, reducing many to indentured servitude. These lords and barons had earned their living through either the labors of their servants or the taxation of their earnings from said labor. No production, per se, is done by these governing lords or barons.

While I can't really put the common uneducated 12th Century peasant in the same boat as a Rearden, Hammond, Stockton, or Galt, I have to notice that all of them actually produced, and the villains in both stories, be it governing lords or barons of a feudal England or a Wesley Mouch of the national government, did not produce.

Robin Hood, from where I can see it, took from the non-producers and gave back to the indentured producers - somewhat similar to Ragnar D.

Was Ms. Rand perhaps too wrapped up in the "rob from the rich and give to the poor" concept promoted in Robin Hood to truly appreciate the state of affairs in feudal England, or is there something I am completely missing in regards to the situation.

Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

Guvmint Cheese

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Josh 10-19-2007, 2:59 PM
I can't remember the exact wording in atlas on the story. but from my memory of it, he refers to people getting the wrong message from the robbin hood story "steal from the rich, give to the poor," instead of the proper message "steal back from the leeches and give to the producers." i don't think rand was bashing the story itself, only the parasites interpretation of the story. people have claimed moral ground based on this story and they have no understanding of the moral implied (kind of like setting up a straw man, but more like creating a straw moral hero). i always took ragnar as ayn rand's reclaiming of the robin hood story. anyway, it's a story. as any product it's sold to the consumer (the reader) to be used for the buyer's own personal gain. interpret it how you like.

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Guvmint Cheese 10-22-2007, 12:20 PM
Ah, going over it again, I guess I'm hung up on the sentence: "Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive." From Ragnar's (Rand's) statements preceeding, your explanation makes sense. It is not that Robin Hood is "the most immoral and the most contemptible" but the popular interpretation of Robin Hood which is so.

Thanks - that's been bugging me for 15 years!

Guv. Cheese

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Zip 12-08-2007, 10:55 AM
I also thought that Robin Hood, by giving the wealth to the poor, eliminated their need/will/desire to take back the riches for themselves and thereby prepetuated the system that enslaved them.

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Dingo_aus 09-24-2008, 8:13 AM
I view Robin Hood as the story of Robin Hood. Effectively Robin Hood is not the man in the 12th Century ,if he ever existed, but the ideal that is created when modern day stories of Robin Hood are recounted. When the modern story is told we are not told of the Barons and Lords and of wealth and production. We are told to think in black and white, the rich and the poor and the lesson to be learned is of wealth redistribution not for a complex reason but that the poor were poor and the rich had wealth which could be applied to the plight of the poor.

I think Rand would not have treated the subject as she did if the modern story contained elements Objectivist philosophy such as more emphasis on the Sheriff of Nottingham being a looter whose crime was not being rich in the face of poverty but of using force to prevent capitalism being the order of the day.

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Chris.S 01-10-2009, 7:27 AM
I think one problem is that at the time of her writings, a lot of cultural emphasis was placed on altruism as the ideal, and this kind of polarized her, especially on such things as Robin Hood, where at face value the stories truly is stealing from the rich (productive) and giving to the poor (the unproductive, the needy). But if one digs into the story and the political and economic background of the era that the folk tale originated, one can see that the "rich" were actually oppressing the "poor", who who were really the "producers" at the time.

But her polarized interpretation of Robin Hood that Ragnar describes fits within the plot, and helps further the objectivist idea. However, her depiction of Ragnars character as a Robin Hood-type means that she definitely understood the original basis of the folk tale. Both worked to restore wealth back to the producers, and both were branded as outlaws by the governments in each story. So she definitely had the modern face value interpretation vs the "correct" interpretation spot on.

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

mjollnir 01-21-2009, 9:28 AM
It would not surprise me if Ayn Rand did detailed research on the source material for Robin Hood, or just happened to watch the Errol Flynn (sp?)movie. In any case, I believe Ayn is saying that the Robin Hood tale is told to reify the 'superior' moral stature of the poor, qua poor. The poor, the needy the mediocre are morally superior to the rich, the productive and the excellent because they are poor, needy and mediocre and therefore the unproductive have the RIGHT to seize what the productive possess. And since wealth at that time wasn't produced as much as it was found and seized by conflicting gangs of thugs (ie knights and lords), the tale perpetuates the falsehood that wealth is some anonymous entity that 'accrues' with one collective or another. There's a world of difference (that altruists of every stripe are trying to evade and disguise) between an apple tree found in a meadow, untouched by human hands, and an apple orchard planted by someone.

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Commiephobe 03-27-2009, 2:25 PM
And and I think it's important to take into account that when most people think of Robin Hood, they think of Errol Flynn, the Disney cartoon, or, dare I say, Kevin Costner.... Most folks don't get to academic when Hollywood's got an entertaining explanation.

Re: Robin Hood's Crime?

Dominique 09-06-2009, 7:37 AM

A part of the explaination about this anecdote that mays seem peculiar, and totally unexpected when Hank Rearden meet with Ragnar Danneskjold on a desterted road at night, is that Robin Hood is considered as part of the realm, as a symbol, of the New Left--he is dressed in full green clothes, he lives in the woods and as such he embodies the concept of raw and savage nature by opposition the realm of machines, complexity, science, etc

You, and some person explain why, in fact; and Ragnar Danneskjold, first and foremost, explain it quite well withpout any ambiguity. Ragnar Danneskjold is the exact opposite of Robin Hood. But perhaps the difficulty to se this lie in the fact that, in the story of Robin Hood, the rich is innescapably the vilain, and the poor is not really involved in any conspiracy scheme.