This chapter explores the rise and raison d'etre of neoliberalism. With roots in the organic episteme, influenced by a new ‘biopolitics’ geared towards the production of life, neoliberalism is presented here as more than just an economic theory. It is a way of thinking and governing that produces a space and species conducive to market forces and the accumulation of capital. Through analysis of the lives and works of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, the chapter charts the emergence of neoliberalism during the second half of the twentieth century, contrasting it with alternative political and economic ideologies. This is a period in which philosophical shifts, influenced by Martin Heidegger, the Frankfurt School and the Existentialists, among others, break with the Cartesian perspective; while communism, socialism and social democracy challenge the capitalist order. Nonetheless, it is neoliberalism that ultimately prevails at the end of the twentieth century: ‘the end of history’.