Batman's Real Superpower Is Universal Employment
From: Solas Khyron, interim CFO, Wayne Enterprises
To: Bruce Wayne, CEO, Wayne Enterprises
Subject: Re: Q4 Budget - Reallocating “R&D” CapEx and OpEx
Bruce,
We’ve known each other for years.
You do your best to keep Gotham City safe but it’s just not good enough.
You’re trying to solve a deep, systemic socio-economic issue with violence.
You’re part of the problem.
When you go after some supervillain and beat up all their henchmen, guess what happens? Those henchmen have broken bones, a bunch of medical debt and a criminal record.
Once they recover, their only choice is to go back to a life of “survival crime” because that’s the only option available to them.
No one hires convicted felons.
It’s a self-perpetuating, criminogenic cycle whereby the situation creates conditions that make it impossible to escape the trap.
Your war on crime has been an expensive, counter-productive saviour-complex dressed up as vigilante justice. Supervillains continue to escape Arkham and criminal recidivism is at all-time highs.
I love Gotham City as much as you do.
Why not take all the money Batman spends and use it to address the structural, systemic issues driving crime?
80% of the criminals in Gotham aren’t actual villains.
They’re not evil.
They’re just folks from financially disadvantaged situations or struggling with substance abuse and mental illness. Life dealt them a bad hand and they felt like crime was the only way to survive.
If they had any other way out, they would never turn to a life of crime.
Wayne Enterprises should be the employer of last resort, offering universal employment for anyone, including those with a criminal record.
This provides a way out of dire, desperate situations that isn’t crime.
I call it C.R.I.M.E: Corporate Recidivism Intervention and Management Entity.
C.R.I.M.E will offer gainful employment to anyone, no questions asked. It will be at minimum wage, with up to $50,000 in signing bonus and $60,000 in student loan repayment for recent graduates. Healthcare is also included.
We can stop crime in Gotham by putting it on payroll.
What will these ex-convicts do?
It doesn’t matter.
They are not committing crimes.
This universal, financial safety net of guaranteed job security for all residents of Gotham City will go a very long way in preventing decent people, in bad situations, from committing crimes.
Bruce, your real superpower is money. There is no shame in acknowledging your money can do more good than your fists.
Reinvesting the billions of dollars you spend being Batman to instead uplift the last, the lost and the least in society will help prevent 80% of crime.
Some will call this ‘welfare for criminals.’
They’re wrong.
This is not charity or capitalism with socialist characteristics. It’s simply the most cost-effective investment in public safety: buying out criminals of circumstance.
I know what you’re going to say. What about supervillains like the Joker? Scarecrow? Bane? Criminals that are inherently evil?
Are we going to “employ” them as well?
No.
All truly evil criminals will be classified as domestic terrorists and killed on sight.
Your belief that taking a life is never justified, your ‘no-kill’ policy, has cost Gotham City untold trillions in personal and economic damages.
On principle, I agree with you. But how many times has the Joker escaped Arkham? How many innocent lives has he taken, because you didn’t take his?
The people of Gotham City cannot afford your moral code.
This is the real world, not some comic book fantasy.
Bruce, you’re a fucking superhero but sometimes that’s just not enough.
C.R.I.M.E will imprison 80% of “criminals” through corporate wage slavery — on payroll instead of committing felonies. For the remaining 20% of actually evil criminals, they will simply be dead.
Reallocating the money spent making you Batman is a justice reinvestment initiative into public safety that will pay dividends - metaphorically for Gotham City and literally for Wayne Enterprises.
Why?
Once C.R.I.M.E has employed all criminals in Gotham City, we will sell public-safety “insurance” to Gotham City as a way to fund all the criminals on payroll.
We’re not extorting the city. We’re offering a service.
The fact that not paying this privatized law enforcement “fund” in perpetuity would result in catastrophic crime rates is a small price to pay for public safety.
Sure, Wayne Enterprises will profit enormously from this program.
But that means Gotham is safe.
You’re not Gotham’s superhero, Bruce.
Money is.
Best,
Solas