Democracy and Billionaires

Rebecca Solnit | Why DEI is Failing | Factoids | Elsewhere and Elsewhen

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Quote of the Moment

You can’t really be in favour of both democracy and billionaires, because democracy requires equal opportunity in order to participate, and extreme wealth gives its holders unfathomable advantages with little accountability.

| Rebecca Solnit, In The Shadow of Silicon Valley

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Why DEI is Failing

An insight about the declining state of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) by Noah Smith, in an excerpt from a longer post that touches on Google Gemini's rendering of non-white Nazi solder images (yes, that's no mistake) because the AI was told to create only 'diverse' images of people. Smith looks at corporate DEI programs and pronounces them similarly wrong-headed and therefore ineffective, at best, and malicious, at worst:

Creating a multiracial nation is an inherently long and arduous process. This is only partly because of political opposition. Mostly, it’s that the things you have to do in order to create a widespread sense of equality and shared nationhood involve making a lot of very deep changes to society.

A prime example is the effort to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion within U.S. corporations and universities. The goal of teaching people how to respect, get along with, and work productively with a diverse set of coworkers is a laudable one. It’s the kind of thing that we don’t really know how to do yet; there’s no proven, effective method for corporate diversity training, so finding what works will inevitably involve a lot of experimentation and evidence-gathering. It’s the kind of task that requires patience, long-term commitment, open-mindedness, and empathy.

Instead, many corporations chose to outsource their DEI training to some opportunistic entrepreneurs. Robin DiAngelo and Tema Okun leveraged their fame to take advantage of the moment of urgency created by the unrest of 2020, selling their programs to companies and schools as a fix for racism. These programs often veered into the utterly ludicrous, characterizing useful work traits like hard work and punctuality as part of “white supremacy culture”. This approach probably added more racism than it subtracted. Meanwhile, there’s little evidence for any concrete benefits in the workplace, and even some diversity consultants now admit that these programs are far less effective than their creators have claimed.

In other words, corporations tried to take a shortcut to a racially inclusive workplace, and the shortcut failed.

This, in part, explains why many companies are winding down DEI programs, along with them being categorized by the Right as “woke”.

I agree with Smith: there may be no short path to get to the mountaintop, so we are confronted with years (decades? generations?) of hard work to achieve the goals of DEI.

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Factoids

For Americans in general, 71 percent thought having a job or career they enjoy is the path toward fulfillment and getting married was the path for only 23 percent. | Pew

I have to say the proportion of people’s belief in ‘job or career as the springboard to a fulfilling life’ is sort of startling.

A great deal of evidence supports the observation that after some sufficient amount of money, more doesn’t increase happiness.

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Via email:

According to new data from Prodoscore, a leading business intelligence solution, a chatty employee is a productive employee.

Per their research, the number of unique interactions an employee has, which reflects the breadth of their social network within the workplace, positively correlates with productivity.

 Adrian Reece, VP of Data Science at business intelligence solution Prodoscore, explains:

"It's fascinating how much the way we work together is tied to our success. Our data shows a clear picture: the more diverse interactions an employee has, the more productive they're likely to be.

What really stands out is how different tools like chat, email, and video calls come into play. It seems these aren't just random choices; they're all driven by how much someone wants to connect and work with others. Interestingly, the tech that's more about solo work, like updating documents or browsing the web does not correlate as strongly to the number of unique collaborators you have on a given day.

Essentially, this tells us that communication and a real, active exchange of ideas are key. Whether it's a quick message or a longer discussion over video, it's these interactions that build the foundation of a productive, engaging, and supportive workplace. This boosts not just how much work gets done, but how happy and motivated everyone feels doing it."

This lines up with other research, such as the finding that having a best friend at work has all sorts of positive outcomes.

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In recent years, part-time work has become the default at many large chain employers, an involuntary status imposed on large numbers of their lowest-level employees. As of December, almost four and a half million American workers reported working part time but said they would prefer full-time jobs.

| Adelle Waldman

This is just one element of the general precarity that market capitalism imposes in its quest to wring profits from the commodification of work. Waldman is worth reading at length.

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