The Sheriff of Nottingham and
Robin Hood
Dated: March 12, 1999.
Editor's notes: The Sheriff of Nottingham was the the original poster boy for slumlords, villains and unscrupulous landlords everywhere. In the final analysis, he failed the King and he obviously never took Economics 101. When you tax people who have nothing you get nothing. It would have been much better to stimulate the peasant economy by a healthy tax cut, encourage trade, maybe even provide some free health care. Better living conditions, health and opportunity for personal gain would be a great incentive for the peasants to produce more. This would increase wealth, more to tax and ergo, more income for the Sheriff.
Editor's notes: Robin Hood or Robin of Loxley, the antithesis to the Sheriff. While the Sheriff failed Econ101, Robin Hood obviously got an A+. Not only did he rob for a living, he made it sound good. Robbing the rich and giving to the poor seems altruistic and all but it only makes common sense. In a straight mathematical analysis, it is more desirable to rob the rich than the poor. By default the poor have less to rob, you'd have to rob a hundred poor to equal a rich man, in fact you'd have to spend all day robbing the poor with no time for anything else. And all we ever see in the movies is Robin Hood larking around so he's obviously figured out the math. We don't see Robin giving to the poor much either (just to his cronies), but we'd forgive him. To give to the poor would be to create an endless cycle where the loot would flow from the poor to the Sheriff to Robin to the poor and back to the Sheriff again. Might as well just keep it, what's the poor to do with fine silks anyway?
N.B.: We neither condone the actions of the Sheriff or disparage that of Robin Hood. But we submit that both the peasants and the Sheriff would have been happier if the Sheriff had followed our suggestions. It is more difficult to say for Robin Hood. Since he was of the gentry and didn't do any work (or knew how to), we would be taking away his livelihood of brigandage. He possibly would have joined the Crusades and we would have lost a fine legend....
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