Even if I knew them that still doesn’t count as mass-exploitation unless they are all being paid far less than minimum wage. Working conditions in American are far less terrible than in places like China.
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Netflix is built on and utilizes all the same assets and means of production as traditional Hollywood. The only difference is the way they deliver it. They still utilize VFX and animation houses that severely underpay their employees and put them on massive crunch deadlines. It still benefits from the same manipulative and dangerous industry that every Hollywood production does.
It also releases shows with highly questionable and bad messages such as 13 Reasons Why for multiple seasons due to the profit it brings in. It also signs multi year deals for millions of dollars with people like Chris Delia. That may seem recent but criticisms of him have been around for many years, they’re just now coming to mainstream attention. That being said, he’s not the only Netflix comic that’s highly questionable.
I’m sure I could go on and on. But even if you were to dismiss all of the above points, you complete missed what OP was saying: “has anybody ever made a billion dollars without sitting on mass-exploitation?)”
They were discussing billionaires not billion dollar companies. These are two very different distinctions to make. Because there’s no ethical way for a single person to earn a billion dollars alone. There isn’t. This person was critiquing the glorification of this type of individual within comics. So you bringing up Netflix (a company, not a person) doesn’t address their point whatsoever.
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Keep in mind that Netflix is designed to be addictive, to the point that Reed Hastings called sleep their competition. And keep in mind that making money “honestly” doesn’t avoid exploitation. Oprah has largely been honest, for example, but she still foisted a bunch of junk science (from people with terrible opinions) on her audience for decades. Legal, honest, but exploitative.
They also traditionally underpay their providers, except for the big names, and that disparity is allegedly even worse for women and minorities.
They have been good to their employees, but to make it on the stock market, ya gotta have that exponential growth!
I believe that you have some terminology twisted around. Nobody believes in subjective morality, except for dictators and their supporters, who believe that the leader can do no wrong. Moral relativism is the work of describing how ethical frameworks differ.
You’ll find some “normative moral relativism” (the idea that we should accept certain behaviors, because they’re not necessarily wrong) around so-called victimless crimes, which has never been a political issue at all, except in what transgressions to normalize.
Please read up on both sets of protests from the people who were actually there, because your current news sources appear to be leaving a lot out. Also, clutching your pearls over property damage more than the police brutality being protested, while also trying to drum up concern about taxation, probably isn’t the best way to show that superheroes aren’t showing a right-wing bend.
That is almost never the case. But I’d also suggest looking at something like Umberto Eco’s discussion of what he called Ur-Fascism (PDF, since the original article is now behind a paywall), basically the culture in Spain and other countries that gave rise to their nationalist dictatorships. He has a lengthy list of features, including tradition, action for action’s sake, an insistence on suspension of disbelief, individualism, imagining of easily-defeated enemies to be terrifying, elitism, driving everybody to be a hero, and so forth.
One disconcerting aspect that I didn’t think of in my initial reply is that most of Batman’s villains, in particular, are explicitly identified as being mentally ill…but Batman beats the stuffing out of them, anyway, and treats them like enemies of the state.
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I’d think that @DeSade-acolyte was spot on. In the US companies are people, more or less. They get an individuals rights. Look at the ruling about 5 years ago that gave Hobby Lobby individual protections under the RFR Act of 1993. I doubt that was written to be used by corporate entities, but with corporate personhood in the US, well…
@Behemoth Maybe we should be comparing ourselves to other 1st world countries when it comes to this sort of thing? If we don’t hold ourselves to a higher workplace standard than China or Indian then we get into trouble. There’s nothing better to strive for.
In the USA the minimum wage only makes up 34% of median national wage. That’s 20% lower than UK. 21% lower than Australia. 28% lower than France.
Sure, parts of France are very expensive, but same here. You can visit Disney World for about the same price as NYC depending on what you’re doing. Just the same… if you made minimum wage in Australia last year you averaged $36,940.
That’s close to what I got paid last year (I fall in line with the US average). It’s kinda pathetic in my opinion. I live in the most expensive area in the state. I still don’t make enough.
(Just adding my thoughts because I live in an extremely underpaid/overworked place. Fair pay is a hot topic here. If any of my tone seems confrontational I apologize. Text isn’t a good place for me. I’m totally neutral sounding in my head.)
@jcolag I’m telling you! Batman post-Crisis is a troubling character. It’s interesting you brought up mental illness. Poor Harvey Dent. He just has Dissociative Identity Disorder from a traumatic injury. 
@DeSade-acolyte I guess saying all this makes me realize why I often prefer older versions of characters from Silver Age comics. They fought for people. Now, to me, they often fight for themselves.
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Crap. I thought we were in Iceberg. I can delete that post if I need to. Someone just poke me.
I’m well aware that corporations are treated as a person in the eyes of a law, but that’s a whole different conversation. A billion-dollar corporation (even if it is identified as a person in the eyes of the law) is not comparable to a single person having a billion dollars.
Also, you and @jcolag are spot on with your concerns of Batman. I’ve actually been working on a new essay for the threads on the subject, but it’s extremely overwhelming with a lot to cover.
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@OmniLad That’s true, but I can’t think of a single person in the country who can spend that kinda money without first going through a board of directors. Most billionaires operate inside the corporate model. Probably why they ended up with individual rights.
I’m excited to see that. You sharing here when it’s complete?
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You’re good. You’re just trying to prove your point.
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Well most of the average workers in L.A. aren’t getting paid nearly as much as they should. But that’s due to other markets such as real estate and taxes making it impossible for businesses to pay their employees enough money to survive on.
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Or because heads of large corporations overpay their investors, CEOs, boardmembers, etc. before the actual people doing their work. Also, just cause every corporation is underpaying their workers doesn’t mean it’s okay. That’s a logical fallacy known as an appeal to the majority. You made a claim that Netflix was a moral company which ethically earned its money. It didn’t. It’s workers are underpaid, overworked, and they support and produce immoral content. And, once again, it doesn’t address @jcolag’s point about billionares. Can you name a single billionaire that has ethically earned their money? And, also, would you care to explain why it’s okay to glorify these types of people in comics?
(And, just so this isn’t a point we go over, I’m well aware that a billionaire’s wealth is also made up of non-liquid assets. That doesn’t change the fact that they all have hundreds of millions of disposable income AT LEAST that were still earned on the backs of overworked and underpaid employees through unethical means).
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You say investors are overpaid? Investors are the ones that go millions of dollars in debt if the company goes under. The worker just gets fired and finds a new job. That’s why there is a high risk high reward system. I would never call any of these companies moral. I am just saying that not all of their billions are gained dishonestly. But this is not part of the main topic so we need to stop.
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Is Batman a fascist? Well, let’s take a look.
For sake of framing things, let’s say we have a definition of a wolf. Now I would look at the definition of a wolf and say that a German Shepherd is pretty similar to a wolf, but if I just focused on a couple of aspects of the definition of a wolf, say the four-legged and mammal parts of the description, then I could claim that an elephant and a chipmunk are close to wolves, or borderline wolves, but of course that wouldn’t fit very well. My point is that when trying to match something to a description or even say something is similar to a description, you need to match a whole bunch of characteristics to the description not just one or two.
So let’s take the description one item at a time.
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
Is Batman far-right? Far-right is pretty unwieldy and arguably means different things depending on context. I’d view Ted Cruz as the most far-right person in the 2016 GOP elections, and he has little in common with the polices of the European far right which would be characterized by people like Hitler. I don’t recall Batman supporting polices particularly identified with either Cruz or Hitler, so…you’d have to give me some examples of how you consider Batman far-right.
Is Batman authoritarian, that is favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom? That’s a tricky one. In one respect, he flaunts the law himself constantly and sometimes encourages other to do so, so it’s certainly not true that he expects mindless obedience. At the same time, he does enforce the laws which he finds of moral urgency which are usually the ones that involve outlawing murder, but then again, virtually every society enforces these measures. I think authoritarian really turns on the idea of strictly limiting personal freedoms, and though I agree Batman sometimes exceeds the reasonable use of force, I’d say he almost always only puts limits on violent criminals, so unless you are against stopping violent criminals, I don’t see how Batman is much more authoritarian than any society.
Is Batman ultra-nationalistic, that is supporting extreme nationalism that promotes the interests of one state or people above all others? I honestly can’t think of a single example that would support this. He’s saved threats isolated to other countries countless times when he could have ignored them if he thought only the United States was worth defending.
Is Batman characterized by dictatorial power? As far as I know, Batman has never supported dictators and rather has frequently opposed them. It might be tempting to say that Batman himself is a dictator, and certainly, I would agree he abuses his power sometimes, but he actually makes great effort to limit his power in many ways most famously with his no killing rule.
Does Batman forcibly suppress opposition? If you mean does he use force to bring criminals to justice, then yes, but so does every society and superhero that ever existed. Forcible suppression of opposition means you oppress those who oppose your perspective. For instance, the Nazis destroyed their political rivals through beatings, false flag attacks, intimidation, social ostracizing, and outright murder. If Batman went around beating the crap out of people who said, “I think vigilantism is bad,” then that would be fascism, but Batman primarily beats up people who try to murder him and others just like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow, the heroes you claim are less fascistic.
Does Batman support strong regimentation of society? I mean, can you give me a single example? None come to mind for me, and I’ve read a crap ton of Batman comics. He seems to be pretty live and let live unless you are trying to do active physical harm to innocent people. I don’t recall Batman generally getting involved in how people live their daily lives and weighing in on how people raise their kids, what language they use, how to think on social issues, ect.
Does Batman support a strongly regimented economy? You mention that Batman is the economy in Gotham, but having a big business is not what is meant by regimenting the economy. Regimenting the economy means top down controls to make sure businesses fulfill the needs of the state. The whole idea of fascism is that the state and business and all the citizens of the nation are supposed to be bound together working for what the dictator deems the common good. That’s a fascistic economy. Making and selling highly useful and desirable products so that your business becomes large has nothing to do with fascism.
So I don’t think any of the characteristics of fascism neatly fit Batman.
I believe that you have some terminology twisted around. Nobody believes in subjective morality, except for dictators and their supporters, who believe that the leader can do no wrong. Moral relativism is the work of describing how ethical frameworks differ. You’ll find some “normative moral relativism” (the idea that we should accept certain behaviors, because they’re not necessarily wrong) around so-called victimless crimes, which has never been a political issue at all, except in what transgressions to normalize.
I mean meta-ethical relativism is you want to get deep into the weeds, and yes, that is the view that morality is subjective.
A group of people that believe whatever their dictator said was morally correct is morally correct would be very foolish, but they wouldn’t be morally subjective. They’d be basing their absolute views on the dictator. Meta-ethical relativism holds that there is no absolute moral truth.
Please read up on both sets of protests from the people who were actually there, because your current news sources appear to be leaving a lot out.
As I said, Tea Party didn’t descend into riots. BLM and other left-wing protests frequently do. If you have evidence to the contrary, share it.
Also, clutching your pearls over property damage more than the police brutality being protested, while also trying to drum up concern about taxation, probably isn’t the best way to show that superheroes aren’t showing a right-wing bend.
False dichotomy. There’s no reason I cannot whole-heatedly condemn police brutality and property damage. Do you feel you can only condemn a white cop kneeling on a man’s neck for nine minutes but not condemn rioters beating up people, stealing, and burning down buildings?
That is almost never the case. But I’d also suggest looking at something like Umberto Eco’s discussion of what he called Ur-Fascism (PDF, since the original article is now behind a paywall), basically the culture in Spain and other countries that gave rise to their nationalist dictatorships. He has a lengthy list of features, including tradition, action for action’s sake, an insistence on suspension of disbelief, individualism, imagining of easily-defeated enemies to be terrifying, elitism, driving everybody to be a hero, and so forth.
I read it. What of it?
He actually nearly agrees with me in that he says fascism is a, “fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions,” which is why I pointed out that people tend to just use the term fascism to denounce things they dislike. The big difference is that Eco then tries to say even though it’s a tangled mess of an ideology that doesn’t have much coherence, he says if it has any single characteristic of what he deems fascism, then it is fascism. This strikes me as painting with way too broad a brush.
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Escapism, for me, is one of the main reasons I consume entertainment, comic books included. Sometimes the escapism can be thought provoking, but that is not usually the reason why I open up a comic book or watch a movie.
Escape from what you ask? I wish I had an all revealing answer for you, but it in my case it’s just the rigors of everyday life. Bills, debts, work deadlines, the responsibilities of raising a family with real needs and wants. My actions don’t affect just me, but the 4 people I love the most. As much of a blessing it is to carry that load, it also comes with a good amount of worry. Am I doing right by everyone? While I do give myself a passing grade, it’s the areas where I know I can be better but have a hard time doing so that get to me the most. So I open up a comic book and get transported to a fictional world. That world can be exciting or funny or poignant, but when I’m in it, I’m just going along for the ride vs being in the driver’s seat.
Saying that out loud, it does sound very “first world”. So many people in this world stuck in bad circumstances they have very little power to change, let alone “escape”. I realize that just having any form of entertainment, let alone arguing about its merits in an online forum, is a luxury many cannot afford.
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Except they don’t go into debt. if this pandemic should teach us anything it should be that these companies and these investors are not as in great of risk as we all are led to believe because our government will pay off any debt they have and help them from going into bankruptcy by giving them billions of dollars. It should be a high risk position, but it’s not. And, at the end of the day, those investors aren’t the ones putting in hours upon hours of hard labor to keep the company afloat.
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Batman literally fights for his perspective alone. He fights for what his vision of a better Gotham should be. Wether he’s right or wrong doesn’t have a thing to do with my assessment.
Also, as pointed out, most of his villains are mentally ill. He doesn’t have enough aware “bad guys.” Most of his rogues wouldn’t be competent to stand trial.
He’s forcing his will on people. Would he be able to display such a show of force without all his money? I doubt it.
I guess we’re disagreeing on the word oppression. I think he’s oppressive. You seem to disagree. I think there are far, far less oppressive heroes. More reserved.
Again, I said borderline. If that doesn’t work for you that’s cool. I disagree and think far too many of his behaviors check off fascist boxes. Maybe not in a conventional way, but more than enough for me personally.
I think my position makes you also think I’m not a massive Batman fan. This also isn’t the case. Tim Drake and Jean-Paul Valley are two of the most important characters in DC for me.
I didn’t even say I entirely disagree with Bruce. I often see things through his lens. It doesn’t not make my line of thinking wrong sometimes. Often. Always.
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That depends. Many large cooperations (tech in notorious for this) will pay as little as possible, make people work on an exempt employee status, so they don’t have to pay overtime, and the expect anyone “in the trenches” who’s not working 60+ hours a week a “slacker” and routinely lay those people off. Netflix is no exception to that. And don’t even get my started on the sham of luring employees in with stock options, which can take 3 -5 years to vests and lo and behold, will think nothing of laying people off 3-6 months before the options vest. Tech workers are being exploited and really need to have that industry’s working conditions more tightly regulated.
I was making 6 figures working in tech, but when I added up the number of hours and then applied that as a breakdown to what I would have gotten paid at time and half for hours 41-60 l & then double time after that. A barista at Starbucks was making more per hour than I was.
Not to mention that so many corporations will play fast and loose with other forms of compensation simply to add a penny or two extra to their quarterly earnings. So if you want to tell me that somebody like Netflix or eBay or FB, or any other string of tech companies I could mention made their billions without worker exploitation, I have to seriously discageee.
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Tim Drake is my homeboy. For clarity, I’m not annoyed at you or anything. I enjoy talking politics and comics, so this conversation is right down my alley and I thought was worth exploring.
As far as Batman fighting for his perspective alone, yes in that he selects who he is going to pursue, but again, how is this different from Clark or Diana? Don’t they also select which laws are worth enforcing? I’ve never seen either of them give a traffic ticket.
Again, his vision of a better Gotham is a place where people don’t extort, kill, and maim one another. He does also invest in projects he hopes will improve Gotham like creating affordable housing and giving ex-criminals good jobs, but these don’t suppress anyone. No doubt Batman would be less effective if he had less money, but are you suggesting that spending money equals wrongful use of force?
It’s kind of true that Batman goes after the criminally insane, but though I’m sure most of the people in Arkham have major issues, I don’t think many of them would actually qualify for insane. IIRC, legal insanity means you don’t know the seriousness of your actions. Most of the people in Arkham know murder is wrong and could not murder, but they are just like eccentrics. Riddler, Black Mask, Poison Ivy, and arguable many others know what they are doing.
Regardless, if a truly crazy man was about to set off a nuclear bomb and you had rubber bullets, would you shoot the guy to stop him or would you let your concern about his condition stop you from saving millions of lives? I’d shoot the crap out of the guy, and so would Batman, but you know, with a batarang. Does that make me and presumably you a fascist?
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Budget. Seeking it out.
Clark fells more balanced. His villains are actual bad guys. Luthor and Zod, as examples, are lucid. He does what he does to save the world out of a sense or responsibility.
Bruce seems more every problem is a nail, and I’m a hammer. It’s all about making his city not be the city that took his parents. There’s a lot more anxiety and paranoia. To me.
I’m more okay with one than the other because Clark seems to have less choice. I start asking if a moral person with his power even should sit it out. Especially when Zod or Darkseid threatens all life on the planet.
As for rubber bullets, it’s not about using lethal force, it’s about taking lethal force into your own hands for your own ideas.
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I think we’re missing a key thing here when it comes to the discussion of Batman’s violence (and other superheroes of course). He doesn’t only employ these extreme and violent tactic to the big bad guys. He also does the same thing to all the henchmen and small guys too. If we think about that more we must reflect on what may have led those people down that path. It may seem silly because we’re talking about comic book characters, but I think art should stand for more than just pictures and drawings. Instead, we should allow art like this to allow us to reflect on the real world.
In real life, people like these henchmen don’t just become evil; their forced into crime due to the broken system and society we have around us. One that doesn’t allow them to find jobs, education, nor a place to live. The only option they have is to resort to this because they have their own families to support. And even though they probably hate the crimes they’re doing, they’re treated the same and attacked in the same way as these big bad guys. Being violently hurt in insane ways to “save the day.” Hell, in some incarnations, Batman will kill them. Look at Batman v. Superman, Zack Snyder’s supposedly more “realistic” take on superheroes.
Bruce Wayne could do far more good for Gotham being a billionaire with the largest tech company in the world. He could help provide jobs to many of these types of people and use his wealth to fund community renovations and educational centers. Instead, he uses his wealth to buy himself cool toys and machines to fight bad guys. And, really, even though he claims that it’s to save Gotham. Really there are far more selfish reasons there. It’s really about him avenging his parents. He’s doing it for himself, not all of Gotham. I’m sure you could point to a couple of moments where Bruce actually uses his money for good, but in the grand scheme of his history it’s just not the case.
As far as the whole, “if a mentally ill person was gonna blow up a building would you shoot them with rubber bullets,” I think we shouldn’t be looking at situations in this way. It’s reactionary. People should be PROACTIVE to ensure that that’s not a decision that has to be made. Bruce has the ability to do this (by funding mental health treatment centers, rehabilitation, education, etc.), but he doesn’t. He reacts to the problem instead of trying to prevent it. And, even then, his solution of punching his way out isn’t necessarily the right answer. I always love looking at this clip when talking about the morality of superheroes and the way they go about things. I’m sure you’ve all seen it before. Nonetheless, look at the way The Flash handles the Trickster in the JL:U clip. A villain just as evil, dangerous, and threatening as the Joker at times is handled in far more ethical way. He even stops Batman and Orion from handling the situation violently and in the traditional ways.
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I think you are painting goons/henchmen with a broad brush.
There are people that like “living outside the law”, they are usually paid in cash and generally don’t pay taxes, some just love violence and fighting.
Are you going to tell me that even in our world, there aren’t people who are making and/or distributing meth because they all came from broken homes and a failed social system? Or is it because they can make more money in a month than most people make in a year?
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