Summary
Costco’s board rejected a shareholder proposal to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, arguing they foster respect, innovation, and cultural alignment with customers and employees.
Shareholders claimed DEI could lead to lawsuits citing “illegal discrimination” against white, Asian, male, or straight employees, referencing legal cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Costco countered that its DEI efforts comply with the law and enhance its culture, rejecting claims of legal risk.
The proposal will be voted on at Costco’s January 23 shareholder meeting.
You don’t seem to actually understand conservatism.
I’ll give you a little primer. Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre created the philosophy of Conservatism as a response to the French Revolution. They were searching for a way to maintain the power of the Nobility in a world that was chopping off the heads of the worst offenders.
Make no mistake, the power of the nobility meant white supremacy as well, because that’s how the nobility always functioned.
But anyway, Conservatism says that the rich are deserving of their riches because they’re just better than you and I. Often invoking God or some bullshit argument that doesn’t boil down to the truth of “my ancestors were fucking monsters who stole a bunch of shit and would literally kill anyone who didn’t obey.”
Anyway, Conservatism has always relied on their being an in class, and then everyone else, but separating that “everyone else” into classes and then sparking resentment among those lower classes.
That’s how it works. Apartheid is when Conservatism is winning, you have your rich elite, and then two out groups, the poor whites and then the bulk of your disfavored minority group (who might very well be the actual majority).
This gives the rich assholes the opportunity to exploit two different groups against each other, lowering the pay of both. And that’s good for the bottom line.
Actually having to pay real wages to the minorities, to treat them as equal to the poor whites who are also being exploited, well that raises everyone’s wages and is seen as the greatest evil that conservatism knows.
Probably could’ve expressed my thoughts better, but I believe your definition and my thoughts aren’t necessarily opposed. I was clumsily trying to say that DEI as is doesn’t really upset the hierarchies you mentioned, and is therefore not opposed to conservatism. Accepting the premise that in conservatism the rich are deserving of their riches because they are better, my point was that DEI actually works to solidify that class disparity because it’s mostly designed to give the appearance of inclusivity in order to attract clientele from all segments of society, thus increasing the flow of income. If DEI means diversity at the bottom of the corporate structure while maintaining a homogenous owner class at the top, which is my argument, then it’s just a tool to transfer money from the bottom to the top, while expanding the pool of money to take from the bottom through inclusivity. I think I fucked up the argument again, but hope it at least clarifies what I was trying to say a little bit.
DEI was a direct response to white supremacist social hierarchies prevalent in the US for over 250 years. Whether or not a business sees it as profitable or good for business is irrelevant.
Modern conservatism is about returning America to greatness. Go out and ask random conservatives when that was. Can you guess?
How does including qualified candidates. That would have been passed over based on culture or race. Reinforce class hierarchies? Race and culture are not classes. Though they are used by supremacist to define classes. Something DEI directly if imperfectly addresses better than anything we’ve ever tried.
But please do explain how you think a policy that directly attacks class hierarchies in horses them. And tell us what you would do that would be better. That isn’t more of the economic liberalism that’s already failed.
It’s always 30 years ago. 30 years ago it was still 30 years ago.