I'm not sure how we're defining neo-liberalism exactly. I thought that it basically meant libertarian? That's obviously not even successful and certainly not the most.
Liberalism as an ideology with its belief in democracy, human rights and free market capitalism is obviously extremely successful. But that sort of logical since it is clearly superior to historical alternatives like communism or feudalism or what have you.
Liberalism is as meaningful as socialism. People can take the word and make a wide use of it, yet you can tell, at least, a general ethos or some points of view.
If you take strictly, I wouldn't classify the postwar consensus inside It, once many concessions were needed on the free market aspect to imbricate the working class within the system, to the point that neoliberalism was first used to classify a type of social liberalism that accepted the failure of free market, later called New Liberalism and which main point of divergence with socialdemocracy relayed on unions role and workers gains. So we need to count from around the 1870's to the big crash. 60 years and the rise of totalitarianism.
The concept Tweed's given is pretty accurate, but I like to call it fourth phase, post-industrialism or information capitalism. If you count the geographical range It reached, It's fair to call It the most successful, paired with the Imperialism which was needed to maintain European liberal capitalism.
If time is the lens used, then I think 27 is a bad record for an economic system. If improvement on human conditions is the parameter, nothing beats the postwar consensus and neoliberalism was only able to work to upper classes. If were talking about amounts of money going 'round, I'm not well versed on 19Th century economics, but It's pretty easy when you can create private money.
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