Neoliberalism and Liberalism. Freedom as a Problem of Government

Abstract

What is there exactly new in the neoliberalism? This question leads us to review some of the most common visions in the humanities and social sciences, especially those that conceive neoliberalism as a return to the liberal ideas abandoned with the crisis of the 1930s. We say in this article that liberalism and neoliberalism are as different as the historical problems to which they try to answer. What comes into play here is “freedom” as a problem of government. Liberalism governs through the way of laissez-faire; in contrast, neoliberalism poses a way of government based on the promotion of the “freedom of entrepreneurship”. There are two forms of freedom that arise in specific historical moments and also have their own scope and effects. The contemporary criticism should consider that important difference, conceiving neoliberalism not as a regression to the old dogmas of liberalism, but rather as a new way of governing our freedoms.