Abstract

This Chapter examines the origins of neoliberalism as liberal economic approach with a social conscience to solving the economic problems of the 1930's by the German Ordoliberalists, the Mont Pelarin Group and the Chicago School of economists. This is compared to the re-emergence of neoliberalism in the 1980's as a broad critical commentary on the effect of political economies returning to a liberal economic approach in which a distinct global political economy of education has developed. By comparing different political approaches to this 'new' neoliberalism the chapter provides a conceptual base for students of education to debate the nature and purpose of current neoliberal approaches to education