Neo-liberalism is a policy model that emphasises the value of free market competition with much emphasis on minimal state intervention in economic and social affairs, and its commitment to the freedom of trade and capital. Neo-liberalism has become the most influential ideology of our time and it guides policies of political parties in many parts of the world such as both the Republican and Democratic parties in the USA and increasingly, those of European and the developing world.
It has become the dominant ideology of the times and has established itself as a central feature of global politics. Not only does it define itself as a political and economic system whose aim is to consolidate power in the hands of a corporate and financial elite, it also wages a war over ideas. In this instance, it has defined itself as a form of common sense and functions as a mode of public pedagogy that produces a template for structuring not just markets but all of social life. In this sense, it has and continues to function not only through public and higher education to produce and distribute market-based values, identities, and modes of agency, but also in wider cultural apparatuses and platforms to privatise, deregulate, economise, and subject all of the commanding institutions and relations of everyday life to the dictates of privatisation, efficiency, deregulation, and commodification.
