What was neoliberalism? The mythical era of deregulation and growth-at-all-costs

Came just to write “was?”

Long story short, economic liberalism is a school of economic theory that’s distinct from and predates the left-leaning political faction that in the US we call “liberal” to distinguish it from the right-leaning “conservative” faction.

(Also, our political parties have heavily realigned their philosophies but not their names in the century or so since the genesis of the economic school.)

Neoliberals are a political faction that aligns with the political right (“conservative”) in the US and subscribes to the economic philosophy of liberalism. The Bush II administration was neoliberal.