libertarian (leaning) Robin Hood

From Cathy Young at Reason...

The new Ridley Scott film Robin Hood, which has opened to mixed reviews on its merits as entertainment, is also drawing some critics' political ire. In New York's leftist weekly, The Village Voice, Karina Longworth laments that "instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, this Robin Hood preaches about 'liberty' and the rights of the individual" and battles against "government greed"; the film, she scoffs, is "a rousing love letter to the tea party movement." On a similar note, the New York Times' A.O. Scott mocks Robin Hood as "one big medieval tea party":

You may have heard that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but that was just liberal media propaganda. This Robin is ... a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties of property owners and provincial nobles.

Whatever one may think of Scott's newest incarnation of the Robin Hood legend, it is more than a little troubling to see alleged liberals speak of liberty and individual rights in a tone of sarcastic dismissal. This is especially ironic since the Robin Hood of myth and folklore probably has much more in common with the "libertarian rebel" played by Russell Crowe than with the medieval socialist of the "rob from the rich, give to the poor" cliché. At heart, the noble-outlaw legend that has captured the human imagination for centuries is about freedom, not wealth redistribution—and this is reflected in many previous screen versions of the Robin Hood story.

As scholars have noted, the earliest Robin Hood ballads, which date back to the 13th or 14th century, contain no mention of robbing the rich to give to the poor....

Of course, the idea of Robin Hood as an early socialist has had a lot of currency as well...But the original Robin Hood, while he has many different faces, is above all a fighter for freedom from tyranny—and that's what made him a legend.