- "All Your Gotham News: day and night."
- ―The Gotham Times tagline[src]
The Gotham Times is a newspaper company published and distributed in Gotham City.[1][2]
History[]
To Be Added
Known Employees[]
Current Employees[]
- Mia Fardy (journalist)
- Katie Sharpe (journalist)
- Ezra Klein[3] (opinion columnist)
Known Articles[]
- Bella Reál: It's Gotham's First Female Mayoral Candidate
- BELLA REÁL ON THE UPTOWN CAMPAIGN TRAIL
- Don Mitchell Up On The Campaign Trail
- Mayoral Candidate Race Up For Candidate Election Draws
- Renewal Corp: Project Lives?
- "THE HANGMAN" ARRESTED: SOFIA FALCONE EXPOSED AS HANGMAN KILLER
- THOMAS WAYNE OPENS GOTHAM ORPHANAGE: RENEWAL PROMISE FULFILLED
The Batman vs. Gotham by Ezra Klein (August 29)[]
Max Weber famously said that the definition of the state is the "monopoly on violence." Only he didn't quite say that. The original quote, from is 1918 lecture "Politics as a Vocation," is more interesting: "A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." It is that word successfully that taunts us today, peeking out from the parentheses.
So here's my question: Is Gotham, still, a state?
Not by the shorthand version of Weber's view. No one can walk the streets at night or track the influence mobsters have on City Hall and think this state holds a monopoly on violence. But perhaps a pedant could rescue Gotham's reputation: Weber really said the state only needed control of legitimate physical force. The criminals aren't legitimate. And the mobsters, like it or not, made themselves legitimate by buying influence in the system. When it is the City Council awarding you the contracts, those contracts are legitimate.
Which brings me to the Batman (a name that still feels ludicrous to type, no matter how often it appears in headlines and newscasts). What is he, within Weber's schema? He is not a legitimate force, in the sense that he carries no badge and answers to no oversight committee. But he is not exactly an illegitimate force, either. He is, after all, enforcing the city's laws -- particularly those the city itself seems unwilling, or unable, to enforce.
The city may not like it, but they will not stop him. Or maybe I should say that differently: they want to stop him, but they do not want to cross the voters who love him. You should hear what officials say to me about him off the record, but their fear of saying any of it on the record speaks volumes. And so they tolerate him. And in tolerating him, they legitimate him enough to undermine themselves.
This is the problem the Batman poses that the criminals, strangely, do not: he strikes at the legitimacy of the state. His existence is their failure. The public's fascination with him, its growing support of him, is a curdling of its confidence in them. The inability to police him reflects the broader inability to police. Gotham does not successfully claim the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within its territory. It is a failed state.
The power of the state is always, to some degree, a story. The state can exercise that power to the extent the story is believed. But if the story ceases to be believable, ten so too does the state. What rises in its place?
Perhaps the Batman is that rarest of all things: a truly moral, even judicious, vigilante. I am not yet convinced, but let's hold it as possible. Those who come after him will not be. And there will be those who come after him. What emerges in the absence of monopoly? Competition. The Batman is an early competitor in Gotham's market for legitimate violence. But this market is open and the cost of entry is low. Weber, in that lecture, was responding to Leon Trotsky, who said that "every state is founded on force." The unsaid coda is every state is destroyed by it, too.[3]
References[]
- ↑ The Batman
- ↑ McCutcheon, John (writers); & Shaver, Helen (director) (October 13, 2024). The Penguin: 1.04: Cent’anni.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Riddler: Year One Chapter Five: Blinded by the Light