TL;Dr putting “neo” or “classical” in front of “liberal” is nothing more than pointless gesturing. It’s “emperor’s new economic model”, really.

Liberalism is basically the individualistic economic model. Think Reagen, think Thatcher. The whole word “liberalism” is basically all flowery and sounds nice, but in fact it’s slightly right from centre. It’s a problem of the overton window in the US, or goal post moving, that makes it seem like a lefty ideology, when in fact it is in effect the economic philosophy that defines the US, the UK and Europe today.

At the same time, “social democrats” (which I used to be) is like saying *I put a socialist hat on my liberalism", when in most cases social democrats will vote for exactly the same things liberals vote for, with the added benefit of seeming like they’re being a bit of a collectivist. In the end it’s all about optics.

Republicans notoriously “hate” liberalism, calling the democrats liberals. Here’s the kicker though: there is no “conservative” economic model beyond liberalism, at least not nowadays. The only real difference there is that some actually want right-wing libertarianism, while others would be fine to return to a more nationalistic social policy, with the added benifit of access to international markets, because that’s where they can get their petroleum, uranium, blood diamonds, wage slaves, classic slavery, etc.

In essence liberalism is all about pandering to corporations by harping on about small businesses, but also privatising welfare with “new public management”. The idea there was to to “decentralise government”, when really it is about shoehorning a fuckton of private companies and consultants into the tax system, making public services super expensive and eventually privatising (amongst other things) the health sector, once it is sufficiently expensive enough.

Liberalist social policies may seem more left leaning, but actually adheres to republican concepts. Note; republican proper, speaking of right to vote, citizenry, congressional government, etc - ya know, creating a republic. But the republican party is everything but republican, in that they are nationalists with classical liberal economic model. Before when they were the democrats (party flip in the 50s) they fronted things like taking away voting rights from felons, justifying poverty by way of “pull yourself up by your bootstrap” and trickle-down economics. They shake their fists against democrats and call them “filthy liberals” to move the overton window further from the left. The democrats and republicans, at least the majority, are in essence following samy political economical values and vote for the same economic policies.

It’s all a big dog and pony show, establishment politics in effect. They act all though and call names on camera, then go to a back room, soften their voice and it’s back to business as usual. Fill laws with holes, cut ribbons at ceremonies, yada yada yada.

Do not fall for the okie doke. Black people in the US did, now there’s “black republicans” and the words “power to the people” has all but evaporated. It’s pretty much what you get when the constituency accepts outrage and reactionary politics. You can claim you’re doing something different, but in essence both the dems and the pubs want the same thing, except the pubs are even worse bootlicking, spineless shills than the dems. It also allows the dems more favourable optics so they can pander to the lefties, but make no mistake: economically speaking they want exactly the same things, with few qualifications.

It should also be stated that philosophically there is no real conflict between collectivism and individualism. It’s a bunch of hooey invented by political zealots and romantics a couple of hundred years ago who waxed poetic about concepts they couldn’t understand at the time in fervent hatred against monarchy. Monarchies was seen as the old collectivists, as nationalism was seen as collectivistic. That’s why today we are in the situation we’re in, because American liberalists in particular masturbate furiously in the idolization of the “founding fathers”, because they too were a bunch of masturbatory liberals who made fancy speeches and had paintings made of themselves.

Again, optics, dog and pony show, bread and circus, a bunch of anti-democratic nonsense to keep people busy thinking there is any real difference, when in fact there is none. The same people who talk smack against liberalism, immigration, missuse of public spending, subsidies, “the deficit” (which doesn’t matter in a fiat currency run country, it really doesn’t - it’s just more distractionary politics), etc, either don’t understand what they’re talking about or are just playing their part in the outrage machinery, because they all benifit from liberal economic philosophy and policies. They hold stock, they go to galas, they smile for the camera, they are in effect aristocratic in nature.