This chapter explains a capsule history of the various modes of the objectification and later commodification of music that preceded today's schizophonia and the ideologies surrounding the production and consumption of music, particularly musics places far from western metropoles. It focuses on the term neoliberal capitalism, a form of capitalism that is being shaped by policies that have sought to enrich elite groups by aggressively utilizing the powers of the state, new technologies, and seeking global markets and labor. One of the contributing factors to conceptions of world music as something that could be appropriated with impunity was the rise of digital sampling. World music in the West continues to enjoy the position of prestige it has slowly wrested from classical music as the music associated with elites, even though, like classical music, its sales remain small. Populous countries such as India and China are home to prodigious and sophisticated music industries.