I wrote this in response to a discussion  of this theme on the NEON list. Thinking it was both too long for an email list and might be a useful resource for some people, I posted it here…

I think that neoliberalism and capitalism are simply different types of thing.

Capitalism is not an ideology. The term is quite often used simply to designate something like ‘a belief in free markets, individual private property, etc.’. This is NOT what ‘capitalism’ means.The name for that set of beliefs is liberalism.  A liberal can be a capitalist or not, and a capitalist can be a liberal or not. Historically liberalism does tend to be the default ideology of capitalists, but this is by no means a universal rule.

Capitalism is essentially a set of social practices whose aim is the accumulation of capital. It is…