That's certainly a model one could use, but it strikes me as not particularly useful.

Claiming lofty ideology is not useful because those policies never exist in real life

Increased precision in base concepts makes it easier to measure and reason about the real-world drift from those bases.

That's assuming that those bases are even the goal for the people implementing the policies, which I am not convinced is the case in the US.

If that is not the assumption then we can just make arbitrary claims about anything and calculate "drift"

I'm looking at this from an economics study view, not a public policy view.

Definitions have an inherently arbitrary component, sure. But stable, precise definitions are far easier to reason with than a shifting definition like "whatever the US is doing right now".

The study of economics is not exactly known for its rigor, I'm not sure how much value that has

Gotta start somewhere.

Do you think capitalism can exist without policy and regulation?