More for All: Curbing Inequality in Our Digital Era

The Intellectual Project Behind The Robin Hood Formula

Jean-Cédric Michel

Independent Author | Political Economy & Fiction

Abstract

This paper presents the conceptual and economic framework underlying the novel The Robin Hood Formula (ISBN 9798267789301; originally published in French as Plus Pour Tous, ISBN 9782839946070). The work examines the structural drivers of wealth concentration under contemporary capitalism, critiques the limitations of redistributive fiscal policy, and proposes a data-driven algorithmic mechanism — the « Robin Hood Formula » — capable of recalibrating profit distribution across stakeholders. Drawing on principles of political economy and labour theory, the novel advances a systematic critique of capital-labour imbalances, arguing that transparency and computational tools may provide a novel lever for bottom-up economic reform.

Keywords: economic inequality, profit distribution, algorithmic governance, political economy, labour reform, capitalism, digital era

1. Introduction

Contemporary capitalism is marked by a deepening divergence between capital returns and wage growth, and between those who accumulate and those who are unable to create savings. Over the past four decades, one dollar invested in equity markets has grown approximately sixteen times faster than average wages, a disparity that challenges foundational assumptions regarding market self-regulation and the equitable distribution of productive surplus. While fiscal interventions — most notably progressive taxation of high incomes and wealth — remain the dominant policy response, they do not share wealth more equally and their political feasibility is increasingly constrained by the concentrated influence of ultra-high-net-worth individuals over democratic institutions.

The Robin Hood Formula intervenes in this debate through the medium of fiction, deploying narrative to render abstract economic mechanisms both accessible and emotionally compelling. The novel centres on Stanford mathematician Professor Eliza Rhodes, recruited to design an algorithmic formula capable of quantifying the fair distribution of corporate profits across five claimant categories: labour, management, shareholders, the state, and lenders.

This paper situates the novel’s intellectual contributions within existing debates in political economy, assesses the theoretical coherence of its proposed mechanism, and reflects on the strategic choice of fiction as a vehicle for economic critique.

2. The Structural Critique of Capitalism: Theoretical Background

Mainstream defences of existing income distributions under capitalism rest on two interrelated claims. First, that markets — including labour markets — allocate resources efficiently, producing equilibrium outcomes that reflect the marginal contributions of all participants. Second, that historical capitalism has demonstrably delivered broad-based prosperity, creating a non-bourgeois middle class and enabling mass access to goods and services previously confined to elites.

The novel’s principal economist, retired French activist and near-Nobel laureate Jean-Paul Bourdin, directly engages with this apologist narrative:

« It’s capitalism’s classic excuse: you already have your share. However, when a few people today have the ability to amass tens and hundreds of billions, while at the other end of the ladder there’s a crowd of billions of people who don’t even make minimum wage — a minimum wage set by law because otherwise it would be even lower — you can’t talk about shares and balance. You need to move the sliders and that means limiting the revenues from capital. Simply put there is no other way. This is still market logic, but we’ve got to set limits. No divine or physical law prevent it. »

This position is theoretically consonant with neo-institutionalist accounts of market failure, and with post-Keynesian critiques of the wage-productivity gap. It also echoes recent empirical work (Piketty, 2013; Saez & Zucman, 2019) demonstrating the secular rise in the capital share of national income across advanced economies. The novel’s contribution is to frame this as a problem of mechanism design rather than merely of political will.

3. The « Robin Hood Formula »: Mechanism and Design Logic

The core intellectual innovation of the novel is its proposed algorithmic intervention. The « Robin Hood Formula » is presented not as a tax instrument — which would require state enforcement and legislative consensus — but as a transparency and benchmarking tool that operates through market pressure and information asymmetry reduction.

The formula operates on a company’s EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation), described as a « standard, defined indicator that’s published » and therefore universally accessible. Three operations define the recalculation:

1. A ceiling applied to dividends distributed to shareholders and interest paid to lenders.
2. A cap on the salary multiplier between the highest and lowest compensated employees within a firm.
3. The elimination of management bonuses and stock-options and account of accumulated cash reserves or undistributed profits.

The output of these three operations is a recalculated set of salary ranges that individual workers could, in principle, use to benchmark their own compensation against their contribution to firm-level value creation. As the character presenting the concept explains:

« What we want is a formula that will give us a result: the salary, or ranges of salaries, that people should be paid for any given job. »

The mechanism relies on mass adoption rather than legislative mandate. The underlying theory of change is explicitly collective action-based: if employees across the economy simultaneously gain access to information revealing the gap between their current wages and their algorithmically-determined value-added, coordinated pressure from labor’s numerical majority could produce wage adjustments without requiring either state intervention or revolutionary upheaval. The novel invokes the historical precedent of unionized households earning up to 20% more than non-union equivalents as an empirical anchor for this dynamic.

4. Information Asymmetry as a Lever for Reform

A notable feature of the formula’s design logic is its treatment of corporate data as a public good currently monopolized by capital. The novel frames algorithmic redistribution as a form of informational reciprocity: corporations have historically extracted behavioral data from consumers and workers; the formula weaponizes their financial disclosures in return and is able to determine or extrapolate the profit structure of each one through geographical and sectoral analysis.

« They took all our data. We take back and process theirs. It’s almost diabolical. »

This framing draws on well-established arguments in information economics. Information asymmetry between employers and employees — particularly regarding firm profitability and the distribution of surplus — is a structural feature of labor markets that systematically disadvantages workers in wage negotiations. By making profitability metrics and fair wage benchmarks of all and every company universally accessible, the formula reduces this asymmetry, enabling what might be characterized as an informed collective bargaining equilibrium without formal union structures.

The scalability argument is explicit: with virtually all corporate financial data now available in digital form, the formula could, in principle, extrapolate salary benchmarks for « every company in the world, listed or not. » The systemic reach of such a tool would represent a qualitative departure from existing wage transparency initiatives, which remain fragmented and jurisdiction-specific.

5. The Political Economy of the Redistributive Constraint

A structuring premise of the novel is that conventional redistribution via progressive taxation is no longer achievable at the required scale, given the disproportionate influence of the ultra-wealthy over political systems. The formula is therefore conceived as a market-compatible reform that bypasses the legislative process entirely.

This premise raises substantive questions. If the formula’s information diffusion requires platform infrastructure to reach scale, it will inevitably encounter resistance from the same capital interests that shape regulatory environments. The novel’s antagonist, billionaire Eldon Miller, is explicitly motivated by the threat the formula poses to concentrated wealth, and pursues its suppression through institutional and extralegal means — a fictional rendering of what political scientists have documented as elite veto power over distributional reform.

Nonetheless, the novel’s ultimate argument, voiced by Bourdin, is that consolidation of the middle class is both an economic and democratic imperative:

« My opinion doesn’t matter. What does matter is the state of things: no one needs to be a billionaire, or a billionaire many times over, or even have many hundreds of millions. Trickle-down is a myth. By letting that happen, you’re not building dreams, you’re breaking down social bonds. […] A lot of people are ready to accept that idea, but, since we don’t know how to do it, it’s still a pipe dream. But from now on it’ll be possible. »

This framing links economic redistribution to democratic resilience, an argument that finds support in empirical political science literature linking wealth concentration to democratic backsliding and institutional erosion.

6. Fiction as a Vehicle for Political Economy

The fiction and thriller format to advance an economic argument gives affordances unavailable to academic or policy writing: the embodiment of abstract mechanisms in concrete characters and stakes; the dramatization of structural conflicts as interpersonal confrontation; and the emotional engagement of a broad readership that would not ordinarily engage with economic treatises.

The novel addresses a readership explicitly framed as plural and politically heterogeneous: « thriller readers, political and inequality readers, anti-billionaires, free market reformers, democracy defenders. » It addresses an existing conversation being — inequalities — one of the current most heated debates in society. This rhetorical breadth aims at bridging ideological camps and presents the formula not as a socialist programme but as a reform operating within market logic, thereby broadening its potential coalition — and power.

This approach is not without precedent. Works from Upton Sinclair’s industrial exposés to contemporary economic fiction have demonstrated the capacity of the novel form to shift public understanding of systemic issues. What distinguishes this work is its attempt to embed a technically specified mechanism — rather than a diffuse critique — within the narrative architecture.

7. Conclusion

The Robin Hood Formula represents an unusual intellectual exercise: the embedding of a formally specified economic reform proposal within a commercial thriller. Its theoretical contributions — an articulation of the capital-labor imbalance, a mechanism design response to redistributive political failure, and a theory of change based on information diffusion — are coherent and engage substantively with contemporary political economy.

The novel is propositional rather than technical: to establish the conceptual possibility of a data-driven, market-compatible redistribution mechanism, and thereby move the policy conversation from « this is desirable but impossible » to « possible — now let us design it. »

In this sense, the novel’s most significant contribution may be epistemological: it challenges the widespread assumption that fundamental redistribution requires either state coercion or revolutionary rupture, and invites economic researchers to take seriously the potential of transparency mechanisms and collective informational action as reform instruments.

Yet, beyond this analysis and above all, The Robin Hood Formula is a novel, a thriller which, against this backdrop, will entertain the reader with its adventure, twists and turns, and strong characters set in the isolated world of the ultra-rich, and in which relationships, seduction and deceit play, just as in real life, a key role.

References

Michel, J.-C. (2024). The Robin Hood Formula. ISBN 9798267789301.

Michel, J.-C. (2022). Plus Pour Tous. ISBN 9782839946070.

Piketty, T. (2013). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press.

Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2019). The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. W. W. Norton.

Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Crown Publishers.

Stiglitz, J. E. (2012). The Price of Inequality. W. W. Norton.

Sinclair, U. (1906). The Jungle. Doubleday, Page & Company.

Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for « lemons »: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500.

Gilens, M., & Page, B. I. (2014). Testing theories of American politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), 564–581.

Nussbaum, M. C. (1995). Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Beacon Press.

Dans le cadre de l’édition anglaise (américaine) de ‘Plus Pour Tous’ sous le titre ‘The Robin Hood Formula’, l’intersection entre fiction et idées, si elle n’est pas inédite en littérature, a interpellé, intrigué, suscité de nombreuses réactions. N’est-ce finalement que… du roman ? Ou y a-t-il un fondement plus élaboré aux idées qui sont le décor, ou le prétexte, à un… roman, c’est à dire un divertissement, qui se lit comme tel, avec ses rebondissements, ses personnages hauts en couleur, évoluant dans l’univers coupé des réalités des ultra-riches, où les relations, la séduction et la tromperie jouent, tout comme dans la vie réelle, un rôle prépondérant ? J’ai donc compilé mes idées et recherches de l’époque de la rédaction de la version française originale et résumé la démarche théorique dans ce court papier – pour ceux que cela intéresse. Et vu aussi la grande et étonnante fermeture du public genevois à ne serait-ce que discuter une redistribution de richesse dont 99,9 % de la population bénéficierait pourtant. Il le semble pas y avoir beaucoup d’agilité intellectuelle pour faire la part des choses entre le capitalisme et ses dérives, et le communisme dont la démarche est accusée et qu’elle ne constitue pas. Est-ce que parce que Genève se nourrit depuis des siècles de l’argent des autres, comme l’illustre le dernier livre de Marc Guéniat ‘Genève Confidentiel’ ?

Dans l’autopsie des procès des citoyens ayant manifesté pacifiquement sans autorisation à Lausanne en 2019 lors de la Grève mondiale pour le climat (avec leur remarquable collectif de défense Procès des 200), deux juges vaudois viennent de livrer deux contributions juridiques sur les limites du droit de manifester, notamment sans autorisation. Un cri de défense – tant la justice vaudoise n’a pas eu l’habitude d’être confrontée à la CEDH invoquée par les manifestants poursuivis ? Un cri de victoire – l’ordre est sauf ? Et de conclure, ou plutôt titrer, « est-ce que la fin du monde justifie les moyens ? ». Très drôle et ouf, l’ordre est sauf. Sauf que. … suite

Le Seco traite actuellement une plainte contre les pratiques déloyales d’easyJet visant à s’éviter de payer les indemnisations dues aux passagers ayant eu à subir un vol annulé ou retardé. Bien que le problème soit notoire, le Seco n’agira que s’il a connaissance « d’un certain nombre de cas », soit de la lésion d’un intérêt collectif au sens de la Loi sur la concurrence déloyale. Si vous avez rencontré de telles difficultés ou n’avez pas réussi à obtenir d’easyJet l’indemnisation due en vertu du Règlement européen CE/261, vous pouvez en aviser le Seco par un bref email indiquant le vol concerné, sa date, et que vous n’avez pu obtenir l’indemnisation ou après des démarches démesurées. L’email doit être adressé à fair-business@seco.admin.ch Pour mémoire, la plainte signale la dissymétrie entre les quelques clics nécessaires pour prendre le billet et les 24 champs (!) du formulaire de demande d’indemnisation, et dénonce le dark pattern qui entraine d’abord plusieurs rejets de la demande pour que le passager se décourage et renonce. Les retards et annulations ne sont pas des aléas d’exploitation mais une stratégie commerciale déceptive puisque, sur 1’050 vols quotidiens, 40 subissent un retard de plus de trois heures et 100 sont annulés. Cela entraîne une dette d’indemnisation de EUR 2 milliards par an envers les passagers victimes – d’où les pratiques dénoncées pour en décourager le plus grand nombre de les obtenir.

Les deux premières éditions étant épuisées, Ministère Mondial du Climat sort en troisième édition « Black Collector Edition » aux Éditions Éclair.

Le monde du livre présente plusieurs modèles économiques et constitue une industrie basée sur le volume davantage que sur l’intérêt des auteurs. La chaîne de distribution traditionnelle permet une diffusion de masse mais souffre d’une forte inertie et de coûts induits élevés. Elle nécessite la gestion de stocks avec ses risques et sa lourdeur logistique pour les éditeurs, les distributeurs et les libraires. Cette chaîne perçoit une marge de 15 à 20%, et les libraires une marge de 30 à 40%.

Dans l’intérêt des libraires : aux Éditions Éclair ⚡, les libraires peuvent acquérir les livres sur Amazon et sont livrés en deux à trois jours sans problème de stock, de retours, ni de surproduction. En appliquant leur marge usuelle correspondant à leur service et à leur valeur ajoutée, ils proposent les livres à un prix qui demeure inférieur à celui de la filière traditionnelle. Commander sur Amazon est plus simple et plus rapide que l’assort et le réassort auprès des grands distributeurs dont les portails informatiques et la logistique sont souvent désuets.

Pas de publications d’actualité en ce moment – car je mets la dernière touche à mon dernier roman à paraître dans le courant du premier semestre 2024. Un thriller à thème qui est la suite des aventures des personnages de Le Jour où Apple a Acheté la Grèce… et de Ministère Mondial du Climat, aux prises cette fois avec les inégalités. Sont-elles un sous-produit inévitable du libéralisme qui a apporté tant de santé, sécurité et prospérité aux masses ? Sont-elles une injustifiable anomalie et dans l’affirmative, comment les éliminer ? Une révolution est-elle envisageable – ou le capital, par les moyens qu’il a accumulés en deux-cents ans, s’est-il assuré que rien ne vienne jamais troubler sa rente ? Un roman décoiffant et qui résonnera en chacun. Stay tuned.

En 2019 j’avais déjà relevé un modèles d’affaires fondé sur l’inexécution contractuelle assumée. Cela n’a pas changé et est pire encore : lorsque le passager demande son indemnisation découlant du règlement européen EC/261, le système de formulaire électronique est programmé pour rejeter sa demande x fois – nonobstant qu’elle soit remplie correctement – afin de l’obliger à recommencer, et que de guerre lasse, il renonce. En langage internet capitaliste, cela s’appelle un « dark pattern« . Le calcul est simple : 180 passagers d’un vol annulé x 250 EUR, cela fait 45’000 EUR. Si 10%, 20% ou la moitié renoncent, c’est tout bénéfice – assumé. Multiplié par le nombre de vols donnant chaque année droit à indemnisation, cela fait certainement des millions… qui ne sont pas payés alors qu’ils devraient l’être. Cette pratique est déloyale et à ce titre illicite. A fortiori que pour demander le remboursement, il y a deux champs à remplir (nom de famille et code de réservation), ce qui fonctionne parfaitement, mais que pour l’indemnisation, il y en a… vingt-quatre. Autant de possibilités d’erreur pour… rejeter la demande. Quant à voyager avec une compagnie qui n’assume pas d’obligation de réacheminer le passager lorsqu’un vol est annulé, chacun est libre de ne pas. La réalité reste qu’en période de vacances, que 180 passagers retrouvent de la place sur des vols existants déjà pleins est impossible, et qu’une majorité perdront ainsi vacances, logement, réservations, etc. Question suivante et ouverte : comment être dirigeant ou administrateur d’easyJet et assumer de telles pratiques ?

James Hawkins, of St. Louis, Missouri, was a prominent lawyer, and figure, in sports law. At 94, he wrote the following piece which may be of interest for those involved in sports law, and on the permanently sensitive relationship between sport and politics. This post expresses Jim Hawkins’ views.

2014 – CRIMEA

Sochi Russia – Feb 6-23, 2014: Russian President V. Putin was a prominent figure at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. Sochi is a modest-sized Russian port on the Black Sea in the Caucasus region. It is near Crimea, the historic Black Sea peninsula that in early 2014 was part of an independent country, Ukraine.^[i]  The Sochi Games were my 11^th (the first was 1960) – attended always as a USA or International Skating Union (ISU) sport official.^[ii] It is clear now, that due to 2016 public disclosures, unknown to us during the Sochi Olympics, there is credible proof that Sochi competition results were severely corrupted by ultra-secret Russian-state political/sport power. Sochi also was, without doubt, more expensive and extravagant than any prior Olympic Winter Games. Sochi’s elaborate sport venues and competitions, plus huge ceremonies and jingoistic productions, were powerfully displayed on worldwide TV. The Sochi Olympics truly occupied the attention of the World’s mass-media and audiences during January and February of 2014. Meanwhile, in a murky and secret background, shocking Russian international sport and political activities were taking place. These activities are the subject of this article.

… suite

L’article 305bis CP comme norme de protection d’intérêts particuliers – des précisions bienvenues du Tribunal fédéral, titrait le CDBF le 17 décembre suite à l’arrêt 4A_603/2020. Dans la ligne de celui de la Poste (ATF 142 IV 333) qui avait exigé une identification des comportements délictueux individuels, cela se tient dans une optique pénale et de lege lata. Le Tribunal fédéral exclut ainsi de considérer une faute de la banque. Il exige que le demandeur apporte la preuve d’un comportement particulier de blanchiment, à charge, s’agissant d’une commission par omission, de personnes soumises à des obligations fixées par la LBA. Il faut donc également prouver leur intention délictueuse. Le résultat est toutefois clair : si l’art. 305bis CP protège aussi des intérêts particuliers, cela restera théorique. … suite

In 2009, the International Skating Union (ISU) imposed a two year ban on German speed skater Claudia Pechstein for doping. Her appeal before the CAS was rejected in November 2009, and her appeal before the Swiss Federal Tribunal was rejected in February 2010. Unlike in other cases, this was not the end of it. Thirteen years later, legal proceedings still go in Germany in a way which raises legal concerns as to the international anti-doping system of norms and judicial review. Revolawtion reproduces hereunder an article by Gerhardt Bubnik, one of the most renowned sports law lawyers (who was the ISU’s legal adviser at the time), on the latest development of the case. 

The Strange decision of the German Constitutional Court

Claudia Pechstein’s doping saga continues again

On June 3 , 2022 Germany’s Constitutional Court (BVerfG) issued an unexpected and shocking ruling, overturning a 2016 ruling by the German Supreme Court (BGH) and declaring that German courts have the right  to review the merits of the Lausanne Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) award, which had become final 13 years ago and by which Claudia Pechstein (CP) was found guilty of blood doping and suspended for 2 years. This award was confirmed twice by the Swiss Supreme Court (TF). The Swiss court is the only state court that, based on the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, has the right to review (not on the merits) the award of the CAS. … suite