[xixi77]

One reason is that the term is exclusively used by the ideological opponents of this "neoliberalism", and as a result it is necessarily ill-defined. A lot of people describe themselves as libertarians of various types, or even as classical liberals, but I've never met a person calling herself a neoliberal. Outlining a difference between these ideologies might be a good start, and would at least give the term some meaning, without it though it is nothing more than handwaving at people the speaker doesn't like. Had that actually been done, I might even call myself a neoliberal one day -- but as it stands, I can't, because no one knows what it is :)

[dragonwriter]

> One reason is that the term is exclusively used by the ideological opponents of this "neoliberalism",

No, its not. Its used by defenders of neoliberalism quite a bit.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2010/Sumnerneolibera...

https://cambridgedevelopmentstudies.wordpress.com/2011/04/12...

http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=31603

http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=94...

> A lot of people describe themselves as libertarians of various types, or even as classical liberals, but I've never met a person calling herself a neoliberal.

Which says a lot more about who you do (and don't) know than it says about anything else.

[xixi77]

Thanks for the references, these are good articles, and I am happy to see that I was wrong and there are in fact some defenders of the term. Still, it is very predominantly seen in a critical context -- quite unlike, for example, "libertarianism" or "economic liberalism" or "classical liberalism".

But, even here it does not look well-defined at all: at best, authors simply classify specific policies as "neoliberal".

[AimHere]

Even if everything you just said is true, not one word of it justifies the use of the term 'conspiracy theory' - which, in turn, is almost always a term used by the detractors of conspiracists. (And, of course, that doesn't mean the term 'conspiracy theory' isn't useful)

[xixi77]

Yeah, I agree that the GP went overboard with the conspiracy accusation. There is of course no conspiracy; but it does indicate bias.