Is Neoliberalism really an individualistic ideology that supports freedom and despise collectivism? I don't think so. They are authoritarian collectivists.
Neoliberals are stupid because they imagine that in their system people are individualistic and free to do whatever they want. It is exactly the opposite.
Neoliberalism emphasizes that if a person does their own thing as well as possible in the spirit of meritocracy, then they will become something. In reality, a person is not free to do whatever they want. A person is free to do things for which we are willing to pay.
This brings us directly to why neoliberalism is not an individualistic idea, but rather a thoroughly collectivist one. What is a collectivist culture? It means that the individual is not allowed to wish or decide things for themselves, but must please others.
In fact, several studies have noted in their results that people from different professions support neoliberal policies. It comes as no surprise: economists, doctors, lawyers, engineers. The same people who earn absolutely outrageous amounts of money every month all over the world. They don't understand that their success is not due to hard work, but to the coincidence that they happen to be interested in fields that pay high salaries. "Our education takes years and is difficult! Student loans must be paid back! Social sacrifices!", there are many fields that are hella harder and require longer education, and yet the pay remains low. Then even if some neoliberal martyr who hates his high-paying job plays the victim for us and says that I'm in a high-paying job that I hate, but it's a sacrifice that has to be made for the money, then shut up. If you hate your job, why do you support neoliberal policies? Why wouldn't you want policies that paid better wages in other fields that you could change your field to so you wouldn't hate your life?
Well, ultimately I don't support capitalism as a whole. I support a post-scarcity technoutopia where machines and artificial intelligence take all of our jobs. However, if neoliberal society were truly individualistic, we wouldn't have a collectivist culture where people have to listen to their Asian tiger parents, where instead of the humanities or the arts, parents reject you if you don't go to medical school, law school, or business school. In real individualistic culture, you could do exactly what interests you in life, without having to experience financial risks. As an individual, you should be able to do exactly what you like, and not have to please others and hate your life in order to make a lot of money.
The main thing about neoliberalism anyway is incentives and that, if anything, is collectivism. Incentives are a way to get people to do something they don't like, but benefits others. Instead of forcing people through economic blackmail and collectivist duty-based ideas to do work that they don't like and are therefore very likely not even good at, we should focus entirely on developing artificial intelligence, so that artificial intelligence would do these unpleasant jobs for us.
Does Neoliberalism sound like an individualistic and free culture to you?