politics

You cannot be more wrong.

It is also commonly associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.

As a public policy, it involves the privatization of public economic sectors or services, the deregulation of private corporations, sharp decrease of government budget deficits and reduction of spending on public works.

There is debate over the meaning of the term. 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".[54] Other academics such as Susan Braedley and Med Luxton assert that neoliberalism is a political philosophy which seeks to "liberate" the processes of capital accumulation.[55] In contrast, Frances Fox Piven sees neoliberalism as essentially hyper-capitalism.[56] Robert W. McChesney, while defining neoliberalism similarly as "capitalism with the gloves off", goes on to assert that the term is largely unknown by the general public, particularly in the United States.[57] Lester Spence uses the term to critique trends in Black politics, defining neoliberalism as "the general idea that society works best when the people and the institutions within it work or are shaped to work according to market principles".[58] According to Philip Mirowski, neoliberalism views the market as the greatest information processor, superior to any human being. It is hence considered as the arbiter of truth. 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."

Neoliberalism is distinct from liberalism insofar as it does not advocate laissez-faire economic policy, but instead is highly constructivist and advocates a strong state to bring about market-like reforms in every aspect of society.[60] Anthropologist Jason Hickel also rejects the notion that neoliberalism necessitates the retreat of the state in favor of totally free markets, arguing that the spread of neoliberalism required substantial state intervention to establish a global 'free market'.[61] Naomi Klein states that the three policy pillars of neoliberalism are "privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending".