A new phase in the development of the capitalist mode of production. But also a new way of thinking about the relationship between economy and society. It is not especially coherent or well-worked out, but its basic tenets are plain enough. Proponents of neoliberalism advocate that strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade are beneficial to humanity as a whole because they give the entrepreneurial individual the maximum opportunity to generate wealth for themselves. The role of the state, according to this doctrine, is to facilitate this state of affairs by maintaining law and order and most importantly the steady state of the money supply by keeping interest rates and inflation low. It is not considered the business of government to supply services such as energy, infrastructure, or even water, so as far as possible this should be handled by private corporations. Marxism economists like Harvey, David have described this process as a renewed form of primitive accumulation. Pricing for all goods and services, including vital services such as health, should be left to the discretion of the market, regardless of whether or not that creates inequality or excludes people from access to those goods and services. The advent of neoliberalism in the mid-1970s spelled the definitive end of the welfare state as a political model. One obvious result of this has been the rise of the precarity, a class of people created by the disenfranchising that occurred as government withdrew from the management of the peoplesâ welfare as its core business and instead focused on the needs of the market. Many of neoliberalismâs key trends---especially deregulation, privatization, financialization, and the withdrawal of the state---were evident to scholars of postmodernity and globalization such as David Harvey and Jameson, Fredric in the early 1980s, but the term itself did not gain currency until the early 2000s. It has now become a kind of catch-all term for any political programme or platform that prioritizes the interests of the financial markets over the basic human needs of society. In this regard, it is not simply an economic model but also a social order and a configuration of power---hence its importance to contemporary critical theory. Further Reading: D. Harvey A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005).