Neoliberalism is a contested term. It first made a splash as an attempt to revitalize liberalism in the context of an ongoing feud between socialism and laissez-faire classical liberalism. It saw that the old liberalism was faltering in its efficacy and public appeal, so they sought a new (neo-) liberalism.
So far, it appears they failed when it came to public appeal. After Reagan and Thatcher, Clinton and Blair, the neoliberal model of governance fell in popularity. This was preceded by an ongoing attack on neoliberalism as an idea by the political and philosophical left, who saw in it a hundred threats to emancipation.
In the public discourse today, there are three kinds of neoliberalisms. The first is the most public face of it, which Pete Buttigieg summed up well:
The second face is that of the new neoliberalism, exemplified by the Neoliberal Project and its associated organizations. Colin Mortimer, the head of the Neoliberal Project, has laid out what he believes are the key ideas of this new neoliberalism: Liberal values, liberal institutions, social liberalism, free markets and trade, a strong welfare state, pro-natalism, and a shift to a green economy, in addition to some policies mostly particular to the United States.
The third and final face of neoliberalism is the one that has become to intellectual left's favorite boogeyman. The most charitable reading I can extract from this face is that neoliberalism is a mindset of governance which wishes to extend the decision-making logic of markets to government functioning as much as possible. This mindset has its upsides: Markets are incredibly effective at pricing and stimulating innovation and are less intent on normalizing citizens into one mold compared to many previously tried systems. However, this comes at a cost too high for these leftist thinkers. With the government slipping its fingers into the market, the market responds in kind. To engage much of society citizens must behave as if they are entrepreneurs of some kind, competing with each other in a not quite zero sum, yet nevertheless rough manner. The moral functions of the state shrink into typically short-term (no longer than a few decades) cost-benefit analyses that may not suit the situation, similar to how a corporation might to satisfy its investors. Overall, these leftists claim, neoliberalism is corrosive, and we can do better.
Given these divergences, it might appear that to write about what the title suggests, neoliberalism's relationship to social justice, I would need to pick one to the detriment of the others. Alternatively, I could do a very long examination looking at all three concepts. Instead, I choose option C: pointing to a key similarity in all three strands.
The neoliberalism of yesteryear was preoccupied with deregulation, cutting the red tape and letting the market decide. In his essay Neoliberalism and Its Prospects, Friedman opens with unhappy remarks about price controls, instead preferring tax-based market manipulation. As he moves into his argument, he remains focused on a lack of direct regulations and a penchant for market action.
The neoliberalism of today is similar. While more bullish on regulations, the focus remains strongly on deregulating, with price controls, zoning restrictions, and occupational licensing laws taking the brunt of the scrutiny. When it comes to climate change, neoliberals today love the carbon tax, the government's way of telling the market in its own language "you can pollute, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."
And the neoliberalism of the leftists remains, for better or worse, deregulatory in nature. With the influence of the market reaching the core of the government, regulations which limit the freedom of market actors are subject to strict scrutiny, in proportion to the influence of said market actors. The greater the impact on the market, the more skepticism it is treated with.
Most high-profile attempts at social justice have focused on equality. A prime example is the current big goal of LGBT advocacy, the Equality Act. Fairly straightforward example. The Equality Act regulates behavior such that it mandates equivalent treatment towards cisgender and transgender people in many circumstances. Other social justice efforts focus on inequalities as well. Advocates for criminal justice reform point out that Black people are in many cases not treated equally to white people. Feminists point out that women are frequently not paid equally to men. While equality can get us quite far in social justice matters, I believe it is insufficient, and that it is being over-emphasized to the detriment of actual reform.
In my previous essay, I briefly suggested we should emphasize freedom more. I will elaborate on that. Freedom is as important, if not more important, an idea to liberalism as equality is. It is a powerful shield against institutionalized bigotry. While the implementation of institutional equality typically requires that people be convinced that there is factual equality, no such burden is needed for freedom. Liberalism involves a bias towards freedom, directing strict scrutiny at those who would wish to infringe upon it.
Deregulation is a powerful vein of freedom. The recognition that the government can easily overreach, and frequently does, is possibly neoliberalism's greatest contribution, both to economic concerns and social justice. To illustrate, let’s look at race and gender, two darlings of the social justice movement in the United States.
Historically, race has been explicitly and tightly regulated by the government in the United States. Originating in the defense of slavery and continuing long after, laws defined who was white and who wasn't, what made a person Black, the privileges and rights granted or denied based on one's racial categorization, and fought to stabilize racial caste with laws against miscegenation. While less explicit today, the impact of laws designed with regulation based on race remains visible. You can thank Lee Atwater and John Erlichman for making this blatantly obvious.
Gender and sex have been closely regulated as well. With such crucial things as voting and holding property legally restricted to one sex, it was imperative for the state to develop measures to demarcate between male and female, man and woman. That there might be a different option was certainly unthinkable; it would undermine the precariously crafted society of male domination and female subjugation that they lived in. As time went on and the feminist movement notched victories, regulation remained. One could easily be beaten, arrested, publicly humiliated, and ran out of town if you wore the "wrong" clothes for your gender. Police officers sexually and physically assaulted butch women, drag queens, and trans people, arrested them, and put photos of them - sometimes naked photos! - in the paper, so that everyone knew to not be tricked by the gender criminals. Today, onerous gender marker, name change, and public facility (e.g. school bathroom) regulations remain as explicit reminders of the state's regulation of gender.
The argument of neoliberalism is that freer markets make for a freer people. It reaches absurdity to combine deregulated markets with unnecessary regulations on people.
Deregulate zoning, occupational licensing, and gender.