Fantastic read, superbly written. Upvoted and resteemed.

The neoliberalism of Thatcherism and that of her prodigy, the faux socialist, Tony Blair, much like Reaganomics, never actually deregulated the market. It was 'selective deregulation' based upon the interests of global capital. There was nothing 'free market' about it.

This was demonstrated by the 2008 collapse. Had we a truly free market the financial institutions would have folded. Their business model completely failed. Death in a free market. The ‘neoliberal’ response was the antithesis of the economic theory they supposedly espoused. Rendering their pretentions meaningless in my view.

I am not disputing your interpretation of neoliberalism at all but rather suggest it was never put into practice. I wholeheartedly agree that the market can never deliver justice and has virtually nothing to say on the issue. It is simply a reflection of the flow of capital and there's nothing 'just' about that.

A truly 'free market' could well stimulate innovation, production and competitiveness, potentially reducing costs (and consumer prices.) However it remains theoretical. Regardless of the theory, the practice of claimed neoliberlism was (is) nothing like a free market.

Aside from the fundamental flaw in neoliberal thinking, that the market has anything at all to say about social justice, it assumes the existence of underlying market forces which don’t exist in reality. Modern global capitalism is essentially protectionist and is inextricably intertwined with a deeply flawed monetary system.

In this context the application of neoliberalism (by Reagan, Thatcher, Blair etc) was nothing more than a tool to promote the worst excesses of monopolistic crony capitalism. The last thing they wanted was an actual free market. Neoliberalism was merely the veneer to cover their crimes and sell deregulation to an unsuspecting populace.

As soon as the whole house of cards started to collapse the self-proclaimed ‘neoliberals’ didn’t hesitate to nationalise the banks. The application of socialist central economic planning. Of course they didn’t deliver any of the benefits of socialism to the people but rather continued along their merry, Machiavellian way to transfer yet more wealth from the people to their utterly moribund banking and monetary system.

Given the current ridiculous size of the derivatives market it seems nothing has changed at all. Around and around we go until we encounter the next, inevitable collapse of the markets under the lunacy of people who say they value the free market but only while it serves their protection racket.