system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is neoliberalism? 

I have no background in economics or politics. Taking my first ever politics elective in university. So overwhelmed by terminology like this.
gpt
Neoliberalism confuses you because it is what you likely call "conservatism" (if you live in the US anyhow), although conservatism is something different altogether in politics.

Neoliberalism is, at its most basic, a strong belief in giving individuals the freedom to exercise their rationality, and make contracts with other individuals, in self-interested ways which benefit society. 

For instance, two men decide to contract their collective efforts, and use their intelligence and sense for the market to band together and run a fruit stall. This benefits each of them, and indirectly society since we can now use our own rationality to purchase fruit from them.

If you're familiar with Milton Friedman, or Ayn Rand, or Alan Greenspan, they have assisted in popularizing neoliberalism. 

Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and other politicians in the 1980s enacted neoliberal policies (in contrast to the social liberalism of FDR, etc.), which involved deregulating markets and in general reducing state functions (especially welfare, health care, etc.).

Essentially, the economic policies you might associate with the Republican Party and other "conservative" political parties - that is neoliberalism at its heart. However, don't make the mistake of associating neoliberalism with the social values of Republicans (anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, etc.) - those are the result of conservatism, and the resulting meld is called neoconservatism (but don't worry about that for now).

I'd highly recommend reading the 10 or so page introduction of Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" - he outlines the fundamentals of a neoliberal viewpoint.