This is the concept guide for exam use. For the full intellectual history, see the Neoliberalism Ideas page.

Neoliberalism is the political and economic programme, dominant from the late 1970s onwards, that sought to reduce the role of the state in economic life, deregulate markets, privatise public assets, and restore the priority of market mechanisms over Keynesian demand management and welfare provision. Its intellectual foundations lie in the work of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman; its political expression in Thatcherism and Reaganism.

Key claims

Neoliberalism’s core claims include: that free markets allocate resources more efficiently than states; that state intervention distorts incentives and produces worse outcomes than market competition; that inflation control is more important than full employment; and that individual freedom is best protected by limiting state power. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944) argued that economic planning inevitably led to political totalitarianism — a claim that seemed more plausible in 1944 than it later appeared.

How to use it in an answer

Neoliberalism is relevant to questions about post-war British and American political history, the end of the Keynesian consensus, and the transformation of social democracy. When using the concept, be precise: neoliberalism is not the same as capitalism in general, not the same as conservatism, and not the same as free-market economics as an abstract principle. It refers to a specific historical programme that emerged in the 1970s–80s in response to specific crises of the post-war settlement.

Further reading: Neoliberalism (Ideas) · Friedrich Hayek · The Mixed Economy and Welfare State
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