BY VIDYA GOPAUL
Wealth redistribution has been happening all around the world, in every continent and in every country in one form or another, for many, many years. That was happening and is happening because of social injustice, inequality between man and woman, a huge gap between the rich and the poor and political strife.
The ideology is the same in most cases. That is, take away from the rich and give it to the poor. It started with the tale of Robin Hood and passed down to several individuals, including Juraj Janoskik, Basil The Blessed of Russia, Nakamura Jirokichi of Japan, Scotty Smith of Scotland, Phoolan Devi of India, Leonarda Emilia, Dr. Ozel Clifford Brasil of the United States and Boss Yu of China.
As you can see, there were no shortage of Robin Hoods in all five continents. And they were not just men, but women as well. Phoolan Devi was a woman lived in India. After being abused by men and found guilty of a crime that she did not commit she started to take revenge with the rich people by forming a gang of her own. With the help of her gang members, she would steal from the rich men and gave away to the poor. Leonarda Emilia was another Robin Hood. Dressed as a man, she would rob rich travellers and redistribute the loot to the poor.
After the crime was done, she would flash her bare torso to the men to show they were robbed by a woman. One other Robin Hood I would like to mention is Pablo Escobar of Columbia. As much as he was a notorious gangster and drug trafficker, he used to redistribute his fortunes to the poor and build hospitals and schools. In the political arena, there is no shortage of people applying the Robin Hood ideology.
The creation of Communism and Socialism was to redistribute the wealth among the people, treat everyone equally and also to counterbalance capitalism. The idea was great, but has not worked well since. In India, there is a group called Naxilte whose mandate is to steal from the rich and redistribute the loot among themselves. In the beginning, they were very brutal and left no stone unturned when it came to rob the rich, and they would do so by any vicious method. Overall, the Robin Hoods of yesteryear were doing good deeds with the loot.
That is, they would build hospitals, schools, house, churches, give to charities and welfare organisations. All these scenarios lead me to believe that there is another Robin Hood of the present day, and that is the #Metoo movement. This movement has targeted rich and famous men, along with the male CEOs of huge companies. These include, but aren’t limited to, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose of CBS, Sylvester Stallone, Les Moonves of CBS, Matt Lauer of NBC, casino magnate Stephen Wynn, actor Morgan Freeman, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and now-disgraced singer R.Kelly. These men are filthy rich. They are millionaires and billionaires. It seems that the hidden agenda for the #Metoo movement is to take away the wealth from these very rich men and redistribute it. As much as this seems to be a women’s agenda, it is possible that men are also behind it for whatever reason may be.
Just like the yesteryear of Robin Hoods who always wanted to make big money very quick and fast by either stealing the banks, selling drugs, breaking into rich people’s homes or robbing the trains, the #Metoo movement is doing exactly the same. Instead of going through the justice systems, which takes a very long time to process, these men are attacked in the “people’s court”, via social media. In this manner they are instantly accused, tried and convicted on the same day! So, the wealth starts to trickle down slowly and being redistributed. How? ‘
As we have seen in all cases, the minute these men are accused of sexual misconduct on social media, they lose their job immediately. For example, Moonves, the chairman and CEO of the CBS Corporation, was ousted as soon as allegations about his private life went public. Matt Lauer of NBC lost his job right away, and so did Charlie Rose of CBS. They were working on television the day before and heard that they lost their jobs onair, on the same station the morning after. Once they lose their jobs, there is no income. Hence, their salaries are redistributed elsewhere. However, the biggest redistribution of wealth takes place through the compensation package received by the accusers, the legal fees of the lawyers, settling lawsuits, and most importantly, when the men are divorced, their wives get half of their wealth.
These wealth settlements are in the millions. Some men have seen their wealth reduced to almost zero. Where did the wealth go? I can guarantee that it was not redistributed to the poor or less fortunate, but it has been redistributed somewhere. While the wealth was redistributed to the less fortunate by the Robin Hoods of yesteryears, the Robin Hood of the present day redistributes the wealth to the not-so less fortunate.
