Ra’s Al-Ghul is a classical fascist. The basis of fascism is that strength is achieved through unity of purpose, and that it is to the ultimate benefit of all that the strong rule the weak. He’s an interesting foil for Batman in the comics because he represents the cold, oppressive dictatorial force Batman could become if he didn’t maintain his rigid, internalized moral code which (for example) prevents him from killing.* In Ra’s Al-Ghul’s perspective, Bruce’s father was too weak to protect his family and so the fault is his. He regards Bruce as being strong rather than broken.
On the other side of Batman you have the Joker, a classical anarchy-by-the-deed nihilist who likewise represents what Batman could become if he fell in the other direction, using his strength of Will to smash apart the corrupt and ineffectual system which allowed his parents to be murdered. In the movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the Joker discovers Batman’s secret identity by torturing Robin and before the final battle (where he dies at Robin’s hand) he mocks Batman about being Bruce Wayne: “Behind all the sturm and Batarangs, you’re just a little boy in a playsuit crying for mommy and daddy. It’d be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.” What Ra’s Al-Ghul sees as strength, the Joker sees as essential weakness, a view with which Wilhelm Reich would have agreed (with Batman as the quintessential example of what Reich referred to as “muscle armouring.”)
* This is the reason so many people are angry about BvS. It’s extremely clear that Snyder doesn’t have the faintest idea what makes Batman such a compelling, archetypal character. In BvS, Batman straight-up murders a whole bunch of people without moral qualm. One of Batman’s most defining characteristics is that he does not kill specifically because it would be so easy and seductive to do so. If he can justify it to himself once, he can justify it again – and again and again. It’s his self-imposed discipline which prevents him from turning into either Ra’s Al-Ghul or the Joker.