Neoliberalism is a dominant ideology shaping our world today. It dictates the policies of governments, and shapes the actions of key institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB). According to Saad-Filho and Johnston, it is impossible to overstate the political and economic implications of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a theory of political and economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual’s entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong property rights, free markets and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices (Harvey, 2005).

Treanor (2005) identifies neoliberalism as a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of goods and services; and where the operation of a market or market-like structure is seen as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action, and substituting for all previously existing ethical beliefs.

Neoliberalism supports deregulation, free trade, privatization, liberation from any bonds imposed by the government and greatly reduced government spending. Neoliberalism is often associated with laissez-faire economics, a policy that prescribes a minimal amount of government interference in the economic issues of individuals and society (Martinez and Garcia, 1997).

Smith (2014) suggests that although the terms are similar, neoliberalism is distinct from modern liberalism. Both have their ideological roots in the classical liberalism of the 19th century, which championed economic laissez-faire and the freedom of individuals against the excessive power of government. Modern liberalism developed from the social-liberal tradition, which focused on impediments to individual freedom including poverty and inequality, disease, discrimination, and ignorance that ha