The State Created Batman

I found a very interesting take on The Dark Knight by Jeffrey Tucker at the Mises Institute. I've always been a big fan of Batman, and even more so now that I consider myself a voluntaryist-libertarian. What Batman means to me is that not only is he doing what the state has failed to do, ie. catch criminals (and embarrassing them by challenging their monopoly on the use of force), but really only exists, at least his more recent version, as a symptom of statist intervention into society. Here's the article, here's an excerpt:

The problem of evil is a big theme for a movie, and certainly for a movie based on a comic book, but Batman: The Dark Knight deals with it expertly, and with a message that offers profound support to the idea of human liberty.

It does so in two ways: it supports the view that human beings are capable of cooperating toward the social good, and it shows the unpredictable level of evil that state intervention unleashes. Yes, I know it sounds implausible, but please hear me out.