Neoliberalism can best be described as a unifying or umbrella term to address a broad range of social, cultural and political transformations that reflect the priorities and values of a market-based economy, increasingly global in reach and integration, yet local and often personal in its workings. The current and extensive popularity of the neoliberal label reflects its explanatory value for prevailing insecurities and the relative powerlessness and anxiety increasingly felt by individuals and communities, urged to become more competitive, more efficient, more flexible, and always more productive in this new entrepreneurial order.

Neoliberalism is not merely a glorification of the market: it is more than the expansion of the commodity sphere and capital accumulation, more than the curtailment of rights and liberties. Neoliberalism also has to be understood as a form of governmentality (Foucault, 2008), as a means by which social relations, ways of living and subjectivities are produced: it enjoins us all, from wage-earners to professionals, to operate in competition with each other, aligning the social world with the logic of the market, promoting and validating increased inequality, and pushing individuals to operate as enterprises themselves (Dardot & Laval, 2009). Holborow's (2015) critical examination of the language of neoliberalism – 'Mission has replaced policy, entrepreneurial has become the most prized social trait, valued customers are what we are and competitive and market efficient what we could be' (2015: 1) – gives us a useful handle on the effects of such discourse on daily practice.

Given such presence, neoliberalism is a term whose growing application risks over-use and ambiguity, and perhaps even a bit of intellectual fatigue for over-exposed readers. In academic circles, we use the word 'neoliberal' as a catch-all derogatory descriptor to critique anything from our own compliance-obsessed managers to the current sorry state of global politics. Quantifiable evidence – the gold standard of audit cultures – suggests that neoliberalism is now widely used to explain many forms of social and cultural change.