Envisioning
A High Road for the 21st Century By Russell Weaver
Introduction
I
n the 1990s, American scholar Joel Rogers proposed the term “High Road” to refer to policies and institutions that jointly uphold and advance the social values of shared prosperity, environmental sustainability, and participatory democracy. Shared prosperity refers to improvements in human well-being and equal opportunities for all humans to “participate in and benefit from” the activities that produce those improvements. Environmental sustainability refers to “efficient use, maintenance, and restoration of the environmental services needed to support human life.” And participatory democracy refers to governance according to the maxim of “of, by, and for the people.”1 While these values are as laudable and fundamental to social life “…21st Century crises demand a today as they ever were, 21st Century High Road.” the intersecting and multiplying crises coming to a head in the 21st Century – climate change, the global COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, racial and gender oppression, state violence, police militarization and police brutality, mass surveillance, political polarization, rising inequality, and so many others – call for an updated definition of the High Road – one that makes explicit not only what the High Road stands for, but what it opposes. We need a definition that is overtly connected to a broader theory of change regarding how to build a High Road future. In short, 21st Century crises demand a 21st Century High Road (“High Road-21”). Notably, the High Road that Rogers built still 116 | Solutions | Fall 2020 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com
possesses a rock-solid foundation and does not require wholesale replacement. High Road-21 is simply about broadening and repaving the surface, painting brighter lines, and installing new lighting to illuminate the paths that lead away from the harmful, discriminatory, gridlocked systems in which most of us have spent the majority of our lives, and to which we’re told that there is no alternative. There are alternatives. Below, we articulate four key pillars of an alternative High Road system for the 21st Century. We then translate each pillar into one or more High Road-21 policy objectives, and we briefly situate the resulting vision into a broader theory of change.
The Four Essential Pillars of High Road-21 Four interlocking and interdependent pillars hold the 21st Century High Road in place. Pillar 1: The High Road is Anti-Racist High Road-21 is anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-misogynist, anti-ableist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, anti-classist, and opposed to all other forms of prejudice and discrimination. While the original High Road principle of shared prosperity is consistent with this pillar in spirit, being for shared prosperity is not enough. It is just as critical to be against all policies, institutions,