  Motivated by a variety of realizations of the compact Lifshitz model I derive
its fractonic gauge dual. The resulting U(1) vector gauge theory efficiently
and robustly encodes the restricted mobility of its dipole conserving charged
matter and the corresponding topological vortex defects. The gauge theory
provides a transparent formulation of the three phases of the Lifshitz model
and gives a field theoretic formulation of the associated two-stage Higgs
transitions.
