[21][22] Neoliberalism is often associated with a set of economic liberalization policies, including privatization, deregulation, depoliticisation, consumer choice, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending.

Scholars tended to associate it with the theories of economists working with the Mont Pelerin Society, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and James M. Buchanan, along with politicians and policy-makers such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Greenspan.

Neoliberalism is contemporarily used to refer to market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state influence in the economy.

Sociologists Fred L. Block and Margaret Somers claim there is a dispute over what to call the influence of free-market ideas which have been used to justify the retrenchment of New Deal programs and policies since the 1980s: neoliberalism, laissez-faire or "free market ideology".

Adam Kotsko describes neoliberalism as political theology, as it goes beyond simply being a formula for an economic policy agenda and instead infuses it with a moral ethos that "aspires to be a complete way of life and a holistic worldview, in a way that previous models of capitalism did not.

[7] The Handbook of Neoliberalism, for instance, posits that the term has "become a means of identifying a seemingly ubiquitous set of market-oriented policies as being largely responsible for a wide range of social, political, ecological and economic problems".

[75] Neoliberalism began accelerating in importance with the establishment of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, whose founding members included Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, George Stigler and Ludwig von Mises.

It holds further that they have been fostered by a decline of belief in private property and the competitive market...[This group's] object is solely, by facilitating the exchange of views among minds inspired by certain ideals and broad conceptions held in common, to contribute to the preservation and improvement of the free society.

[79]The society set out to develop a neoliberal alternative to, on the one hand, the laissez-faire economic consensus that had collapsed with the Great Depression and, on the other, New Deal liberalism and British social democracy, collectivist trends which they believed posed a threat to individual freedom.

While still opposed to full-scale Keynesian employment policies or an extensive welfare state, German neoliberal theory was marked by the willingness to place humanistic and social values on par with economic efficiency.

[100] Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension, as well as diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure from the United States,[101] the Chilean armed forces and national police overthrew the Allende government in a coup d'état.

[191] Early roots of neoliberalism were laid in the 1970s during the Nixon administration, with appointment of associates of Milton Friedman to Departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Justice, and the Council of Economic Advisors and encouraged funding of the American Enterprise Institute and defunding of the more centrist Brookings Institution,[192] and during the Carter administration, with deregulation of the trucking, banking and airline industries,[193][194][195] the appointment of Paul Volcker to chairman of the Federal Reserve[196] as well as increased military spending at the end of his term leading to fiscal austerity in US nonmilitary budget diverting funds away from social programs.

[213] Neoliberal proposals for Japan's agricultural sector called for reducing state intervention, ending the protection of high prices for rice and other farm products, and exposing farmers to the global market.

[221] Keating, building on policies he had introduced while federal treasurer, implemented a compulsory superannuation guarantee system in 1992 to increase national savings and reduce future government liability for old age pensions.

[226] Lange's government had inherited a severe balance of payments crisis as a result of the deficits from the previously implemented two-year freeze on wages and prices by preceding Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, who had also maintained an exchange rate many economists now believe was unsustainable.

[247][248][249] In the 21st century, the term has increasingly been used to denote the free-market economics of Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek,[250][251][252] including their criticisms of government intervention in the economy,[253] which has tied the school to neoliberal thought.

[264][265][266] These prescriptions, often attached as conditions for loans from the IMF and World Bank, focus on market liberalization, and in particular on lowering barriers to trade, controlling inflation, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and reducing government budget deficits.

In his view, the voluntary character of all transactions in an unregulated market economy and the wide diversity of choices that it permits pose fundamental threats to repressive political leaders by greatly diminishing their power to coerce people economically.

But by many other measures, especially economic, things have gotten worse, thanks to the establishment of neo-liberal principles — anti-unionism, deregulation, market fundamentalism and intensified, unconscionable greed — that began with Richard Nixon and picked up steam under Ronald Reagan.

American political theologian Adam Kotsko argues that contemporary right-wing populism, exemplified by Brexit and the Trump Administration, represent a "heretical" variant of neoliberalism, which accepts its core tenets but pushes them to new, almost "parodic" extremes.

"[356] Sociologist Thomas Volscho argues that the imposition of neoliberalism in the United States arose from a conscious political mobilization by capitalist elites in the 1970s, who faced two self-described crises: the legitimacy of capitalism and a falling rate of profitability in industry.

As such, he argues this made the United States an outlier with economic inequality hitting "unprecedented levels for the rich democracies," and notes that even with average incomes "very high by global standards," US citizens "face greater material hardship than their counterparts in much poorer countries."

[360][361] Research by Kristen Ghodsee, ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that widespread discontent with neoliberal capitalism has led to a "red nostalgia" in much of the former Communist bloc.

She argues that "the political freedoms that came with democracy were packaged with the worst type of unregulated, free-market capitalism, which completely destabilized the rhythms of everyday life and brought crime, corruption and chaos where there had once been comfortable predictability.

"[372] He contends that IMF policies of spending cuts and tax increases, as well as subjection to paternalistic supranational bureaucrats, have fostered "long-term dependency, perpetual indebtedness, moral hazard, and politicization" in the developing world, which has undermined "real market reform" and "set back the cause of genuine liberalism."

[62][394] If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe.

[398][399] Neoliberalism also favors investor–state dispute settlement in free trade agreements, which has been criticized as violating sovereign immunity and the capacity of governments to implement reforms and legislative programs related to public health, environmental protection, and human rights.

[413] Rick Rowden, a Senior Economist at Global Financial Integrity, has criticised the IMF's monetarist approach of prioritising price stability and fiscal restraint, which he alleges was unnecessarily restrictive and prevented developing countries from scaling up long-term investment in public health infrastructure.

[433] Firzli insists that prudent, fiduciary-driven long-term investors cannot ignore the environmental, social and corporate governance consequences of actions taken by the CEOs of the companies whose shares they hold as "the long-dominant Friedman stance is becoming culturally unacceptable and financially costly in the boardrooms of pension funds and industrial firms in Europe and North America".

Catholic political scientist Albert Bikaj considers the neoliberal concept of free market "fundamentally nihilistic" because it's profit-oriented, neglecting Christian ethics and undermining human dignity, common good, environment, and civilisation.