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Diversity and Inclusion are two of the modern virtues that have been embraced by the corporate world, as well as most public and private institutions in the UK. The diversity agenda has found a way to prosper, where other egalitarian movements like multiculturalism, feminism and anti-racism have not only floundered but have also been obstructed at every turn. To my mind there are two reasons (at least); the first has to do with the bottom line - money, and the second has to do with the fact that the diversity agenda lends itself to be readily bureaucratized so that organizations are able to look good without actually needing to do good.
Both are part and parcel of the neo liberalist ethos that has come to rule our planet. The prior equality movements required a redistribution of wealth. They presumed (rightly) that the world and its resources are finite; and so the only way for a finite cake to be distributed more equitably was for the well-to-do to take a smaller slice. Unsurprisingly this strategy found no favour with those in the Board Room. The diversity idea succeeded by the device of claiming that if organizations were to increase the diversity of the workforce it would benefit the already privileged as much as anyone else. The cake itself would get bigger - and so all will benefit from it. You will recognize this as the same trickle-down line that neoliberalism has been trying to sell us for the last fifty years (‘leveling up’ in its most recent incarnation). In the organizational diversity literature this has been referred to as ‘lucrative virtue’ (Thiederman, 2003) and “diversity dividend” Haq (2004). Meanwhile Henry says:
[there is] a market opportunity serving the ‘bottom of the economic pyramid’ namely the four billion people with incomes less that $1500 a year’. Another excitedly says: ‘In the U.S… Older Americans, people with disabilities and gays and lesbians control … $1.6 trillion’ (Henry, 2003:6).
In order to exploit this market, companies need to fi