Not only that, some lower-income voters not only don’t pay income taxes, but can collect up to $5,000 in welfare from the IRS. More than 50 percent of the nation’s earners pay negligible or no income tax. Today we have a new type of tyranny, the tyranny of freeloaders. We have representative government and so, since we elect the government, we elect to tax ourselves. Too bad we don’t have a Robin Hood today. Robin Hood was the champion of freedom lovers, little people who believe in small government and not those who believe in income redistribution. So the next time you think of the story, envision Robin Hood the Taxbuster. The legend says nothing derogatory about becoming rich by moral means but condemns coercive, nonrepresentative tyrannical government. Rich merchants traded throughout the known world and made available desired goods not produced locally. The real antagonist of the Robin Hood legend is not the evil rich but an oppressive government. To prove my point, Robin Hood did not steal from rich merchants, he only stole (retrieved taxes) from the local and national authorities, the sheriff and Prince John. That, my friends, is a more accurate description of what he did. He took the taxes collected by the government and gave them back to the taxpayers. So what did Robin Hood do? He didn’t take from the rich. There weren’t any big factory owners at the time but some of those merchants did quite well for themselves. But then in those days the Church, like the nobility, had the power to tax. The clergymen mostly led austere lives except for the upper echelons who, like the noblemen, were rolling in dough. Serfs and most tradesmen were generally quite poor and had no influence or representation. In Robin Hood’s day there were kings and noblemen, clergymen, serfs and tradesmen and merchants. They were rich because they had the power to tax. These guys weren’t simply rich, they were the government. Remember the villains in this story set in 12 century England? They were the sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John, the usurper brother of King Richard the Lionheart. He didn’t take from the rich and give to the poor. That’s not the story of Robin Hood at all. It’s very romantic notion, and I, like most others, enjoy it.īut wait. Versions of it have become movies and television shows, books and magazine articles. Our children see or hear the Robin Hood story, and the theme resonates with their youthful idealism. We need a hero to help straighten out the situation we need a hero to get even. It’s a wonderful theme that fits well into the template of progressive economics: The rich are bad the poor are downtrodden. You heard the legend about Robin Hood and his merry men they lived in Sherwood Forest, and they took from the rich and gave to the poor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |