Narrative-first, evidence-driven

Back to blog

The point of this post (and what it’s not)

I am not trying to be left or right. I am trying to be useful: lower the monthly squeeze, increase real options, and keep dignity and guardrails intact.

This is not me picking a team.

It is me stepping back, looking at the big economic families people sort into, and asking:

Which parts map cleanly to E4E? Which parts fight it? Which parts are context dependent?

Most families have a good-faith version and an ugly version. I am trying to evaluate patterns in practice, not reward labels.

E4E is not politically aligned, group aligned, or religiously aligned. It is trying to stay human aligned:

• people need stability
• work should pay
• essentials should not feel like a casino
• dignity should not be conditional

If those outcomes sound left one day and right the next, that is exactly why E4E exists.

My working beliefs (held lightly)

I keep coming back to three beliefs:

• healthier capitalism grows from the middle out
• competition beats concentrated power
• lowering squeeze lowers rage and scapegoating

That is the core.

The E4E lens

E4E is built around a mechanism: when basics get expensive and unpredictable, fear rises; fear makes manipulation and scapegoating easier.

So the job is boring and moral at the same time:

• reduce monthly squeeze
• block capture (rigged markets and rigged government)
• keep democratic guardrails intact
• keep policy simple enough to survive real life

Simplicity is not cosmetic. Complexity becomes a moat.

What E4E borrows (and what it refuses)

Libertarian / classical liberal

What E4E takes:

• suspicion of unnecessary complexity
• preference for rules small entrants can actually navigate

What E4E refuses:

• pretending essentials remain fair automatically
• calling markets free when switching costs are punishing

Neoliberal / globalization-first technocracy

What E4E takes:

• growth matters
• broad participation is part of stability

What E4E refuses:

• trusting averages when lived outcomes diverge
• paper wins that fail at implementation

Social democracy

What E4E takes:

• middle-out logic
• dignity and guardrails as hard constraints

What E4E refuses:

• bureaucracy as default delivery model
• administrative burden as acceptable collateral damage

Communitarian center-right

What E4E takes:

• family and place stability are real economic variables
• institutions matter

What E4E refuses:

• in-group dignity only
• moralizing structural hardship

Abundance / supply-side progressivism

What E4E takes:

• capacity in essentials is the long-run fix for scarcity taxes
• inflation discipline matters

What E4E refuses:

• “just build” without anti-capture design

Green industrial policy

What E4E takes:

• mission capacity and long horizons

What E4E refuses:

• vendor capture and opaque contract systems
• implementation complexity that turns public goals into insider games

Left populism (practical version)

What E4E takes:

• anti-monopoly, anti-corruption, pro-worker pressure where extraction is entrenched

What E4E refuses:

• purity tests
• rage as a governing strategy

Austerity centrism

What E4E takes:

• fiscal and inflation discipline matter

What E4E refuses:

• treating household instability as acceptable policy collateral

E4E’s non-negotiables

• anti-scapegoating
• guardrails and accountability
• policies that work with normal humans, not perfect administrators

One repeatable test

When someone pitches a policy, ask:

1. Does it reduce monthly squeeze?
2. Does it increase real options?
3. Does it build capacity without capture?
4. Does it protect dignity and avoid scapegoating?

If those answers are fuzzy, the idea may still be sincere. It is just probably not loop-changing.

Close

I used to think economic philosophy meant joining a club.

Now it feels more like building a toolkit:

• a hammer for capacity
• a level for guardrails
• a tape measure for outcomes
• and a hard refusal to blame the nearest person for structural failures

E4E is not a tribe.

It is an attempt to be useful.

Appendix: Comparison Grid

header key:
mo = middle-out · comp = competition / anti-monopoly · cap = capacity / abundance · simp = simplicity · gov = guardrails / accountability · inf = inflation discipline · anti = anti-scapegoating

Scale: ++ strong alignment · + some alignment · 0 mixed/depends · - often in tension · -- frequent conflict

Back to blog