Joshua at Fagistan finds the noblesse oblige and corporate feudalism of Batman Begins hard to swallow. 

[Batman Begins] gives us a man who sees a significant moral difference between killing someone and merely letting them die. It also gives us a portrayal of grotesquely corrupt municipal governments and the utter failure of democracy to provide safety or comfort to the people. With democracy fallen around us, there is only one place to turn. The rich, handsome, perfect Bruce Wayne with his billions and his ruling instinct and his good breeding and his castle literally right out of the English countryside. The justice system leads to killers being declared "insane" to avoid punishment. Fascism proposes that we simply kill all the bad people before they can do bad acts. Feudalism allows us one judge and executioner to carry out an incoherent system of justice, in which claiming not to want to kill people but killing them anyway is "heroic."

But this has always been Batman, has it not?  A rich vigilante torn between an obsession for vengeance and need to grant mercy? 

It’s not as though Batman succeeds.  Sure, he defeats many villains over the course of his crime-fighting career.  But his enemies more and more come to depend on the Batman for the raison d’etre—the Joker’s psychopathy feeds off the Batman, and Bane is drawn to him like a magnet.  And because the crime never abates, Wayne’s obsession never abates. 

The obsessed, rich vigilante and the psychotic criminals need one another.  The one without the other would not survive for long.