“Neoliberalism” is among the most contested political and economic concepts of the modern era, emblematic of a broader proliferation of ideological “isms” that have emerged alongside globalization. The term itself did not originate as a polemical weapon, but rather as a modest intellectual project. It was first coined in post–World War I Germany by economists and legal scholars associated with the Freiburg School, who sought to revive classical liberalism in a moderated form—one that acknowledged the need for a regulatory framework to preserve market competition.
The concept re-emerged in a very different context during the 1970s, when Latin American economists employed neoliberalismo to describe a set of pro-market reforms emphasizing privatization, deregulation, and fiscal discipline. By the early 1990s, however, the term had undergone a decisive semantic shift. Critics of market-oriented reform, particularly in the global South, infused “neoliberalism” with sharply pejorative connotations, linking it to the so-called Washington Consensus—a package of economic policies and institutional reforms widely perceived as instruments for extending American-style capitalism and its attendant cultural values across the globe.
Not all observers accepted the analytical usefulness of the term. Some dismissed neoliberalism as an imprecise slogan deployed by radical academics or economic nationalists to undermine the intellectual legitimacy of neoclassical economics and its most prominent advocates, including Nobel laureates such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. Others characterized it as little more than a postmodern revival of eighteenth-century laissez-faire rhetoric, celebrating individual self-interest, market efficiency, and unrestrained competition while ignoring social and political costs.
Despite these criticisms, neoliberalism has demonstrated remarkable staying power in public discourse. Over the past several decades, it has appeared with striking regularity in global media and academic debate. The term has been associated—often retrospectively and rarely with the consent of those labeled—with a diverse array of political leaders, including Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, Boris Yeltsin, Jiang Zemin, Manmohan Singh, Junichiro Koizumi, John Howard, and George W. Bush. None of these figures openly embraced the neoliberal label, yet all pursued policies broadly consistent with its core tenets: economic deregulation, trade liberalization, and the integration of national economies into a single global market.
During its apparent zenith in the 1990s, neoliberalism assumed a position of near-hegemonic influence. It penetrated the post-socialist economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, reshaped development strategies across the global South, and even proved adaptable enough to influence post-Mao China, where “socialism with Chinese characteristics” increasingly resembled the market-oriented system it was once ideologically opposed to. This ideological flexibility contributed significantly to neoliberalism’s global reach.
Yet at the dawn of the twenty-first century, neoliberalism’s credibility has been severely undermined. A global financial system structured around its principles was shaken by a crisis of a magnitude not witnessed since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The resulting dislocation has raised fundamental questions about the sustainability and legitimacy of the neoliberal model.
The contemporary debate, therefore, is no longer about neoliberalism’s dominance but about its future. Is neoliberalism in terminal decline, or does it possess the capacity for reinvention? Will reform-oriented leaders within institutions such as the G-20 pursue genuinely alternative economic paradigms, or will they attempt to restore a modified version of the neoliberal order that characterized the “Roaring Nineties”? Above all, the enduring question remains whether a coherent and viable alternative to neoliberalism can emerge in a deeply interconnected global economy.
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