The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Neo liberalism has developed in Japan since the latter half of the 1970 s and to clarify its distinctive features from a critical viewpoint. I examine the notion of "Neo-liberalism", the development of economic policies based upon Neo-liberalism, their economic background and two particular policies as a case study (the resort development policy and the nursing care insurance system). These studies indicate that Neo-liberalism in the 1990s was quite different from that in the 1980s. The 1980s version called for "rethinking the public and private sector", but had still remained immature. By contrast, the 1990s version has developed on a full scale during the 1990s, prompted by the multinationalization of leading Japanese enterprises after the Plaza accord. In conclusion, (1) recent Neo liberalism is not founded on the notion of "socio-liberalism", which requires complete freedom of thought, but on that of "economic liberalism", which attaches great importance to a public order based upon "efficiency" ; (2) it is a naive "market fundamentalism" or "libertarianism" which will not take into account the work of J. Rawls, R. Nozick, A. Sen and other liberalists ; (3) in the field of regional development policy Neo-liberalism has induced "rent seeking" and has increased expenditures on public works, but has also had a tendency to release the public sector from its responsibilities for welfare services.