DEI is capitalism's Achille's heel

By JD Goulet

Preface

The following essay was originally published 20 June 2023 on Substack under the title "DEI is capitalism's Achille's heel." As many of my long-time readers know, I removed all of my content from Substack (aka the Nazi-bar) some months ago. Only a fraction of my body of work has been reproduced here on the WhiteWind atproto blog service. I've long had intentions of republishing more or all of my essays, but some I've wanted to update, and this was one of them. In fact, I've had a near 4,000-word draft in progress for some months, but I've been discouraged by some from publishing anything critical of DEI (or my former employer) in our present fascistic circumstances, and that's understandable.

So, let me be clear, my criticisms are not of the true intentions of these programs or, for the most part, of its practitioners. My criticism is, as I've written in my draft:

The institutionally approved literature on DEI attempts to reconcile worker liberation with existing corporate structures—an approach that fails to recognize how capitalism creates the very conditions of inequity that DEI initiatives claim to address. As someone who has navigated the intersection of multiple marginalized identities working for “corporate influencers” claiming to champion diversity, I’ve witnessed firsthand how this contradictory approach to achieving equity and inclusion enables systemic oppression to maintain itself. With frustration, I’ve observed the rise (and current fall) of a profitable, but ultimately ineffective industry of corporate DEI publishers, consultants, and coaches, which has thrived by maintaining the status quo while paying lip service to progress.

So why am I publishing this again today? It was requested of me by a reader who, months ago, had opened my essay where it sat as an open browser tab and when they finally went to read it, discovered it gone and was disappointed. Today has been a weird day, with not one but two different people reaching out to me as a result of knowing me through my now-defunct Substack presence. As one of them pointed out, the universe seems to be screaming at me.

So, it seems it's time I start to bring back to light some of my past musings that are becoming, sadly, more relevant by the day. (I've had more than one request now to republish my essay warning of a coming rise in autistiphobia and transphobia, so if that interests you, check back... I'll have it up soon. It's another I've wanted to rewrite/update and just never got around to it because disability is a bitch.)

I vow to eventually bring you my more recent thoughts on the DEI topic, but for now... here is where I was at in June 2023. I wrote this right after I torched my bridge with Harvard Business Publishing (the same publisher I've mentioned doesn't pay its writers), where I had been working as a corporate learning product designer, heavily involved in DEI aspects of leadership development for global Fortune 5000 professionals and hitting every wall erected around me. That is the lens through which this essay was written.

P.S. There is a link to "Buy me a coffee" below, and I'm going to ask that if you are able and you liked what you read, please kick a few bucks my way. Even sending me one Euro will mean you paid me more for a published article than Harvard did, and won't that feel nice?

DEI is Dead. Long Live DEI.

No ideology… has ever been able to incorporate [within capitalism] without finding itself subordinate to it. [Capitalism] is a black hole that eviscerates any human attempt at establishing principles or morals.—Fight for a Future, Liberalism is Polite Stalinism

I came to the conclusion while working within the realm of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in a previous role at Harvard Business Publishing that the goals of programs that promote equity and inclusion and those of corporate interests within a capitalist economic system are ultimately incompatible. Achieving true equity and inclusion requires systemic changes that challenge the status quo of exploitative and extractive capitalist power dynamics.

Consider that the broadly stated goals of DEI programs in fostering equity are to eliminate systemic barriers and promote fairness by providing equal opportunities, resources, and support to all individuals and to address historical disadvantages and create an equitable playing field where everyone can succeed.

News flash: the systemic barrier to achieving any of that is the capitalist system itself.

What it really feels like to be a marginalized person working for a supposed “woke” organization in the U.S. (Text added to an original image by Anton Gudim)

This is why Republicans are going to such great lengths to demonize, and even outlaw, DEI programs, teaching history accurately, banning books, and weaponizing the word “woke” to attack anyone who believes achieving a more equitable and just society is a worthy cause.

Dr. Damariyé L. Smith, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Black/African American Rhetoric and Media Studies at San Diego State University, says “woke”¹ arose out of the Civil Rights Era as just another way of saying critical thinking. “What are the ways in which our government is not necessarily protecting us as citizens?” It means connecting the dots and being conscious of systemic issues that produce unequal outcomes.

This is why trans and queer people, neurodivergent people, Black and brown people, disabled people, people of religious and non-religious minorities, and all other marginalized beings whom DEI initiatives ostensibly seek to even the playing field for are under attack. Because dismantling the systems of our oppression is the only real path towards leveling the uneven playing field.

The Right recognizes that following the principles of DEI to their logical conclusion poses a threat to upholding a system that benefits a select few. Practiced holistically, without the taint of the neoliberal Professional Managerial Class (PMC), DEI would be a menace to the ownership class (and the PMC) that benefits from maintaining the status quo.

Which is why the fickle establishment “Left” in the U.S. (PMC-backed Democrats who barely register as center-right on the international political spectrum) are little better (and arguably worse). While they aren’t openly criticizing and criminalizing DEI programs, the PMC-Left is certainly not about to fully enable its DEI practitioners to actually accomplish equity and justice. That would mean abolishing the systems from which they also benefit and maintain power.

DEI initiatives, therefore, function as a useful subterfuge for those in power, regardless of which end of the political see-saw that power rests on: the woke boogeyman for the conservative members of the PMC and their masters or the “thoughts and prayers” of the PMC-Left and their masters. At best, corporate DEI acts as a shield against criticism and attack, allowing the system to keep grinding us up under the guise of a more equitable and inclusive meat grinder. “We want you to feel like you belong!” says your inclusive boss while turning the handle.

What cuts deeper than betrayal by a member of your own identity group? Pretty sure nothing.

This is not to say that some good doesn’t come of these programs or that all DEI practitioners are part of some elitist conspiracy to keep the proletariat down. I have no doubt that many passionately went into this line of work (or are still in it despite all the cuts to their budgets as the economy shuddered under the weight of too many empowered workers). Like the doubtful priest, many swallow their cynicism and keep their heads down, hoping for that elusive “incremental progress.” Many others are just indefinitely caught in a stage of naïveté.

Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction.—W.E.B. DuBois

But for all the good these programs can do, those of us who are not members of the ownership class (hint: that’s the vast majority of us) who want to achieve true freedom, equality, and justice, must stop trusting our owners to give it to us willingly. We must see these programs for the pacifiers they are, a poor substitute for the milk of liberty we all must have to nourish and sustain our humanity.

To the more “acceptable” marginalized folks who found yourselves in the PMC, you who are all too happy to close your ears and look away when your working class kin call out the obvious injustices in the system you choose to uphold because it benefits you and you don't want to risk your cushy place in the upper ranks of the corporate hierarchy, may you never have to face the consequences of your willful blindness. Sleep well knowing that you are more capable of contorting yourself into the right shaped cog to fit the machine, for now.

To those who have discarded the ill-fitting “human who is acceptable within this social construct” mask forced upon us under this anti-democratic, colonizing regime, and would seek to help others shed their masks and be liberated, we must do no less than seek the “abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another,” which is to say, to seek solutions in socialist² solidarity with each other.

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JD Goulet (they/she) is an American-born former corporate writer/editor & learning product designer, political leader, Planned Parenthood board member, and secular movement leader. Throughout her career, she has been an educator and champion for inclusion and wellbeing, especially at the intersection of disability, neurodiversity, sexuality & gender, and class. Their bylines appear in Harvard Business Review, Tumbleweird Magazine, Solarpunk Stories, and various regional publications. She lives in Portugal with her wife and two dogs.

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Footnotes

1. Dr. Damariyé L. Smith, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Black/African American Rhetoric and Media Studies at San Diego State University, says “woke” arose out of the Civil Rights Era as just another way of saying critical thinking. “What are the ways in which our government is not necessarily protecting us as citizens?” It means connecting the dots and being conscious of systemic issues that produce unequal outcomes. ↩

2. "For us, there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another."—Che Guevara ↩