Class War in the Time of Robin Hood

From FEE.org (June 16):

Only those who are particularly wary of an apparently left-wing message in the legend take exception. Socialists, of course, make the most of Robin Hood as a hero of the underclass and a medieval precursor to modern Marxist class theory.

Because Robin Hood is a centuries-old folk hero and not a historical figure, each generation has been able to reinterpret the legend to fit its agenda. It was only in the nineteenth century, for example, that Robin Hood amended his modus operandi to include giving to the poor. But if we look to the era in which his legend first "became genuinely popular," according to historian Simon Schama, we’ll see that the classes in conflict don’t neatly fit the Marxist theory. They do, however, fit the older, now mostly forgotten libertarian class theory of French and American classical liberals.

The Black Death reached English shores in 1348, killing almost half the population by 1350. The survivors were, of course, devastated. Not only had they lost their friends and families; they lost any sense of order in the world. The Middle Ages were marked by a belief in permanence and predictability. For the commoners who made up more than 90 percent of the English population, the details of one’s life would have resembled those of one’s grandparents and could be expected to be the same for one’s grandchildren. Then everything changed.

The population became drastically smaller—especially among working people—but there was just as much gold, as many acres of farmland, and as many buildings and other artifacts of pre-plague England. There was, in short, the same amount of wealth in pre- and post-plague England, and only half as many people to possess it.

With fewer peasants to till the soil, landlords had to compete to attract the surviving labor. After many generations on the same few acres of land, healthy field workers were suddenly uprooting and moving to wherever they found the best opportunity. Market forces made the lives of working people immeasurably better—and the nobles who lost the bidding wars for their services didn't like it.

As happens in every era of dramatic change, the economic has-beens appealed to the coercive power of the State to return conditions to a comfortable status quo ante.

The Statute of Labourers (1351) made it illegal for peasants to accept wages that were higher than pre-plague levels. Meanwhile, food prices skyrocketed, as we should expect from a doubling of the supply of money relative to food supply.

The poor, forced to endure hunger and shortages, could see ever more clearly that the source of their suffering was not just bad weather or pestilence; it was a political class growing rich from peasant labor. [read more]

And so the producers or if you wish the Common Class revolted. What? You meant the peasants revolted right? Well, not exactly. Yes, there was some peasants revolting but it was mainly merchants and lawyers. They also got screwed by the statute.

The Left will read the above and say, See the Rich oppressed the Poor like always. It was the Ruling Class (the landlords) who made it hard on the peasants by putting pressure on the State to make the Statute. Crony capitalism anyone? Yea, even back then. Before capitalism was even a word. The State had the choice not make the maximum wage law. So, basically all the people revolting or protesting back then were an early form of TEA partiers.

One other thing. Robin Hood robbed from the corrupt oppressive government not from rich. This is another fact the Marxists have twisted to suit their needs.