The Ethics of Robin Hood

The story of Robin Hood is a good one. Robin of Locksley, a disenfranchised noble, “steals” wealth from those who have, themselves, robbed it (the government) from the productive elements of society (private individuals pursuing their own self--interest), and returns it to those who actually created that wealth through their labor. Rare is it to find a more libertarian, or pro-capitalist hero than the original Robin Hood. He recognizes not just that taxation is undesirable from a utilitarian standpoint, but that it is profoundly immoral, and is in no particular way different from common robbery. As such, he takes proper action in attacking the aggressors of the state, taking from them their stolen property, and returning it to its proper owners.

However, in recent years, the story has changed. Instead of taking wealth from thieves and returning it to its owners, Robin Hood “robbed the rich” and “gave to the poor” as if this was somehow an acceptable thing to do. The fact of the matter is, the original Robin Hood did not actually steal. That was the entire point of the story, he was simply taking what had been stolen and returning it to those who produced it. It is not thievery to take what has been unjustly acquired. However, the moral implications of the idea that “Stealing from the rich to give to the poor” is an acceptable, even an admirable action, are deeply disturbing. The first notion it introduces is that the rights of man are tied to his financial standing. If this is the case, than the villains of the story of Robin Hood, Prince John and the Sheriff are Nottingham, are fundamentally no different from its heroes. Both believe, simply in reverse orders, that the level of wealth which a person has acquired effects the amount of legal and moral rights which they are to be afforded. In order to justify these actions on the part of our “hero”, we must also believe, fundamentally, that the suffering, or the “need’ of some men is, as Ayn Rand would say, “a mortgage on the lives of others”. This ethic of slavery, for that is what it is when the fruits of some men’s labor are taken from them by force, to be attributed to the ends of others, if truly and fully accepted, will sound the death knell of the west. What has always made the west great, what has given it cause to rise above the huddled masses of the impoverished east, is the belief that man belongs to himself, and that, as such, his dreams are his to achieve, if he may find the means. This belief gave birth to capitalism, which is the greatest social achievement of western civilization (not democracy, which is, taken on its own and without a capitalist, individualistic ethic, no less tyrannical than despotism) or, indeed, of any human society.

This ideal, of man as an end in himself, free to pursue his own self-interest and his own happiness without being ruled by others, found its zenith in the founding of the United States of America. It is now at its greatest nadir since the Dark Ages which immediately followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The shifting ethic of Robin Hood betrays a larger, and far more worrying trend. If we continue to follow the moral monstrosity of collectivized ethics, we will find ourselves just as impoverished as those in the third world, in spirit first, and, eventually, in body.