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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29233 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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If DEI stuff was more meaningful and continued to exist in tighter markets, ya I think market forces would destroy it.

It seems to me that DEI arose as a tribal response to social conditions, and that those social conditions persist, so the drive for something like DEI likewise exists. DEI is a way to focus discontent over social outcomes into fungible money and power for a particular tribe. Why not simply demand DEI through law? Why not simply use social coordination or the powers of the state to squash any actor that attempts to exploit the market forces in question?

Why not simply demand DEI through law?

They've tried, but the opposite has so far been more successful. I.E. banning DEI initiatives.

Why not simply use social coordination or the powers of the state to squash any actor that attempts to exploit the market forces in question?

I don't have tons of faith in the US political system. But it is pretty good at protecting wealth. DEI screws with people's ability to maintain wealth, so its been a losing prospect in US politics.

They've tried, but the opposite has so far been more successful. I.E. banning DEI initiatives.

Affirmative Action seems to have been pretty successful. HR encroachment and enforcement backed by the CRA seems to have been pretty successful. Are you using a definition of DEI that excludes those legal structures? It seems to me that both of those and many similar efforts besides strongly shape the pool of PMC types who are going to be running the relevant industries and drafting, passing, interpreting and complying with the relevant laws.

Where has banning DEI been successful? I'm not aware of any instances that have actually born significant fruit, but am open to the idea that I've missed something.

But it is pretty good at protecting wealth. DEI screws with people's ability to maintain wealth, so its been a losing prospect in US politics.

DEI might screw with society's ability to maintain wealth. I see no reason why a DEI-committed elite could not profit immensely from the practice, at the expense of essentially everyone who isn't them. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water and you can make him drink if you shove a hose down his throat. The idealistic point of DEI is to solve inequity. The practical point is to amass wealth and power, which can be exchanged for power and wealth. When they write the laws, as they have in the distant past, the recent past, the present, and which we should expect them to continue into the future, I do not see a barrier to "correcting" "toxic market forces".

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