I want to follow up on two essays I penned in July 2023 and October 2024, Ending Patronage and Co-optation: The Death of Affirmative Action is a Start and Co-optation and Negation: Understanding Corporate Hegemonic Strategy respectively, in which I discussed the hegemonic strategy of co-optation and negation. Throughout history, rulers have faced the challenge of governing diverse populations with competing identities, interests, and loyalties. One enduring strategy for maintaining authority and suppressing dissent is elite co-optation—the deliberate selection and incorporation of representatives from various ethnic, social, and tribal groups into the ruling apparatus. While often presented as inclusive or meritocratic, this method serves a deeper strategic function: to legitimize elite rule, entrench and perpetuate the concentration of power, and neutralize opposition.
In traditional imperial and monarchical contexts, elite co-optation involved granting prominent positions to token representatives from different groups within a realm. These individuals—chosen not for their ability to challenge power but for their willingness to align with it—were given administrative authority, court roles, privileges, and titles. Their presence in the ruling circle gave the impression of a unified, pluralistic society, even as real power remained concentrated in the hands of the king or imperial elite. This not only fostered loyalty among influential subgroups but also fragmented any unified opposition, as co-opted elites now had a vested interest in preserving the existing order.
Under colonial rule, this strategy became especially pronounced. Empires, such as the British, French, and Ottoman, leveraged colonial collaborators—educated elites, local chiefs, or religious leaders—to serve as intermediaries between the imperial center and the colonized populations. These collaborators helped administer imperial policies, collect taxes, and manage dissent, reaping personal benefits in return. They put a human face on foreign rule, while their elevation entrenched systems of inequality; their symbolic inclusion masked the exploitative nature of the imperial system, enabling empires to rule vast territories with limited direct oversight.
The legacy of elite co-optation did not disappear with the collapse of empires. In modern liberal democracies and capitalist economies, especially those with corporatist arrangements, the strategy has reemerged in subtler forms—for example in the deployment of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in corporate and state institutions. DEI programs aim to increase representation of historically marginalized groups, including along lines of ability, gender, race, and sexuality. DEI is less an instrument of justice than it is a tool of symbolic incorporation that deepens corporate state control over the populace.
Corporations and government bodies elevate individuals from underrepresented backgrounds into highly visible positions—as consultants on institutional diversity, on executive boards, in public-facing leadership roles—to put a human face on the corporate state. These figures become the modern equivalents of colonial collaborators: symbols of inclusion whose presence can deflect criticism and pacify broader demands for structural reform. By appearing progressive, institutions maintain legitimacy and public approval without necessarily redistributing power or altering foundational systems of inequality. Indeed, this is the core function of progressivism. While DEI offers opportunities for individuals from groups that have historically been excluded or marginalized, it traps those individuals within systems that expect them to represent their group while at the same time protecting the status quo.
freedom and reason 