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From Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement
March 9, 2025

Winston Peters recently made a speech attacking Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes in Aotearoa. The speech, filled with reactionary bluster, predictably framed DEI as a tool of woke overreach. But what neither Peters nor his liberal opponents will admit is that DEI is not a radical challenge to oppression—it is a corporate mechanism designed to sustain capitalism.

DEI seeks to create “fairness” within a system that is inherently exploitative. It gives capitalism a human face while leaving its fundamental class structure intact. The entire project is about ensuring that racial, gender, and sexual diversity exists within workplace hierarchies—but never questioning why those hierarchies exist in the first place.

DEI: A Liberal Diversion from Class Struggle

Liberals promote DEI as a solution to workplace discrimination, insisting that better representation across identity categories will lead to a more just society. But these are the same categories weaponised by liberal identity politics to obscure the material realities of class struggle. DEI does not challenge capitalism—it reinforces it by fragmenting working-class solidarity, convincing workers that their primary struggle is for fairer representation within an oppressive system rather than the abolition of that system itself.

We are sold an illusion: that exploitation can be made more inclusive, that wage slavery can be made fairer, that oppression can be more equitably distributed rather than abolished altogether. But exploitation with diverse faces is still exploitation.

Peters vs. DEI: Two Sides of the Same Bourgeois Coin

Peters and his ilk attack DEI from a reactionary position, seeking to reinforce a conservative capitalist order. Liberals, in turn, defend it as a necessary reform to make capitalism more just. Both perspectives are distractions. The problem is not an inequitable distribution of power within capitalism; the problem is capitalism itself. DEI programmes, funded and endorsed by the very institutions that profit from exploitation, will never resolve the contradictions of class society.

Take, for example, the absurdity of DEI under capitalism. The logic goes: if all forms of discrimination and underrepresentation were eliminated, workplaces would be fair and inclusive. But no workplace under capitalism is fair, because capitalism is built on surplus value—the theft of workers’ labour. The question is not whether all groups are equally exploited but why exploitation is tolerated at all. DEI offers nothing but a more diverse set of managers overseeing the continued plundering of workers’ labour.

The Only Real DEI: The Abolition of Class Society

A true challenge to inequality does not come from corporate HR policies but from the self-organisation of workers and communities against capitalism itself. It is not achieved through liberal reforms but through revolutionary struggle.

The only real DEI is the dismantling of capitalism:

- Diversity that comes from the self-determination of workers and tangata whenua, not corporate quotas.
- Equity that means the end of private property and exploitation, not marginally higher wages for an elite few.
- Inclusion that means collective decision-making and mutual aid, not the tokenistic incorporation of a few into positions of power over the rest.

It is our task as anarcho-communists to expose these illusions, to organise beyond the distractions of bourgeois identity politics, and to fight for a society free from all forms of oppression—capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal. No amount of corporate DEI training will deliver liberation. Only the abolition of capitalism will.

Comments

anon (not verified) Sat, 03/15/2025 - 07:50

"WOKEism": a liberal diversion from Class Struggle TM.

Workerism: a commie diversion from anarchy.

anon (not verified) Sat, 03/15/2025 - 12:44

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I really wish (some) anarchists hadn't swallowed whole the messaging of the right / nazis. Such a bad look, parading your ignorance & racism, for what, a pat on the back from Joe Rogan?

anon (not verified) Sat, 03/15/2025 - 16:48

In reply to by anon (not verified)

...that I used QUO-TA-TION MARKS for "WOKEism", fool? That means I'm not seriously endorsing the term, but only using it in reference to the fans of this insufferable meathead.

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 09:51

In reply to by anon (not verified)

So when nobody can understand your poor communication skills and attempts at sarcasm it's everyone else's fault? Seems sus, brow. Good thing you can cya by deleting comments that rightly called your comment out for being reactionary trash.

lumpy (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 10:01

In reply to by anon (not verified)

scare quotes are a thing but it might be worth considering that "WOKE", as opposed to woke (aka knowing real history instead of reactionary trash history) has been psyop-ed by the far right, directly in to the sun

like, this was their whole agenda, to empty out the word of its original meaning and jam "cultural marxism" in there instead. they have largely succeeded, people are now very confused!

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 10:08

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

Well according to 1 or 2 trolls here, you're a Far Right bigot coz you just evoked the "WOKE" term. Some ppl are *that* hypersensitive, due to maybe being self-confined in their posh Victorian houses 23 hours a day. The SUN... what is that!?

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 10:14

In reply to by anon (not verified)

> their posh Victorian houses

LMAO kinda specific, brow. CUMpletely wrong but, okay, go off!

Also consider this: if it quacks like a reactionary duck -- and no additional conversation can occur because some power-tripping moderator deletes responses that question it -- it's a fucking reactionary duck.

lumpy (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 10:16

In reply to by anon (not verified)

if they're actually upset, then are they trolls?

i thought the whole point of trolling was to feel clever and superior while not get triggered like a lil' snowflake?

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 12:21

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Workerism: a commie diversion from anarchy.

Signed, Javier Milei and Elon Musk.

Also, note that I used the word "commie" just like all my fellow stupid right-wing 'Murikans.

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 15:44

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Yes, always forcing your funny outdated Leftard religion on other people. Never change.

Accept the Working Class as your Lord and Savior, or else you ancap Muskian heretic!!!

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 10:40

Wise not woke anarch here, I just want to say that diversity, equity, and inclusion are all anarchist values regardless of whatever ideology latches onto the intentions these values express for their political point scoring, promises before elections and public relations, in which case, yes, it's a sly recuperation within a sick structure which might have some temporary good outcomes but not for the longhaul.

anon (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 17:01

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Diversity, difference? Sure. They can and should be celebrated and upheld.

But equity and inclusion? How is this anarchist? Please parse that. And don't just go "how could you even question such things" because I just did.

lumpy (not verified) Sun, 03/16/2025 - 19:40

In reply to by anon (not verified)

equity as in, if there's massive disparities (in power, wealth, etc), that means there's not much liberty for most ppl, in practice. the powerful tend to hoard everything for themselves, if they can

inclusion as in, exclusion is generally bad for those being excluded, especially if it's arbitrary and without good reason (like poverty, which is a totally bullshit form of exclusion)

this is all ... very standard and classic political theory, not even limited to the left, unless you just mean, everything left of monarchism. if this is news to you, you're not very familiar with the anarchist tradition, so why are you here? to learn? cuz that's good, if so!

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