Neoliberalism is anything but a succinct, clearly defined political philosophy. Both friends and foes have done their share to simplify, if not popularize, neoliberal worldviews. Paradoxically, Margaret Thatcher's “TINA” (there is no alternative) corresponds with the left-wing critique, which posits that neoliberalism is best understood as an economic pensée unique (a concept popularized by Pierre Bourdieu). Growing self-confidence on the right coincided with an increasingly frustrated (old) left during the upheavals of the 1980s and 1990s, with both sides eventually converging on a perspective of a neoliberal one-dimensional man. … This ignores the fact that interdisciplinary Austrian and ordoliberal (German/Swiss) reservoirs of neoliberal thought have been clearly at odds with neoclassical orthodoxy, as are more recent variations of (rational-choice–based) neo-institutionalism. … But contrary to many who readily identify neoliberalism with Austrian economics, Foucault (2004, 112f.) suggested that ordoliberalism has a legitimate claim to the neoliberal title because of its strong emphasis on the social character of economic relations.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 77