Newsflash Neoliberalism IS Conservative economic dogma and has been since before Richard Nixon was elected President . Conservative Republicans and Third Way Democrats both embrace neoliberalism . Their Congressional history proves as much . Neoliberalism is NOT liberal in the sense you are mistaking it for here . Instead , it is nothing more than rebranded classical economics masquerading as ProgressiveLiberal economic principles . As they are prone to do , oligarchs and Republicans used misleading labels to disguise their economic and political agenda . Neoliberalism was originally intended to strike the common sensecentrist balance between far right wing stupid represented by classical economiclaissez faire principles and communism at the polar opposite extreme . FDR once epitomized what it was meant to stand for , but then right wing economists hijacked the concept and dragged it back toward far right wing stupid territory . It ' s been there since Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 . Don ' t believe me ? Compare the fundamental principles of classical economics to . The reason that classical economics and , by extension , neoliberalism are problematic is because those economic principles made both the Great Depression and Financial Crisis possible based on the very reasons you laid out above . You ' re now more knowledgeable about neoliberalism than you were before you responded to my post . One last point , don ' t mistake Third Way Democrats for centrists , moderates or even liberals . When it comes to national economic and fiscal policies , they are as corrupt and right wing stupid as Republicans happen to be .