Chevan Nanayakkara 🗽 (@chevan.info)

Defending Democratic Capitalism Through Capacity Stewardship Part 3 of Defending Democratic Capitalism For fifty years, you've been trapped in a false choice. The far right tells you collective action is theft. The far left tells you reform is betrayal. Both keep you passive while oligarchy consolidates power. This essay reveals what both extremes hide: you can preserve American values and expand middle class power through capacity stewardship—making evidence-based decisions about what markets provide versus what requires public provision, demanding institutional quality that enables informed stewardship, and managing the economic transitions needed to make democratic capitalism work for everyone. The core reframe: Government doesn't need money like households. It creates money when it spends, constrained by productive capacity and real resources—not budgets. Once you understand this, the question changes from "can we afford it?" to "do we have the capacity to build it, and which mechanism (markets or public provision) best serves this need?" But capacity stewardship requires institutional infrastructure: active Congress producing reports, investigative journalism exposing capture, universities generating valid knowledge, and science operating with integrity. The fifty-year assault didn't just spread money mythology—it systematically destroyed the institutional capacity citizens need to steward democratically. The path forward starts with conversation, not protest. Explaining how money actually works. Building understanding of your role as a capacity steward. Demanding quality from both markets and government. Expanding middle class power. The American middle class was deliberately engineered by political leadership in the 20th century. That leadership is gone, compromised by oligarchs. The mechanisms remain. The work now falls to citizens. Nobody is coming to save us. https://chevan.info/defending-democratic-capitalism-through-capacity-stewardship/