Neoliberalism's Moral Overtones: Music, Money, and Morality at Thailand's Red Shirt Protests

Abstract

In 2010 and 2011, hundreds of small bands of enterprising comrades loaded their vehicles with instruments and set out to play music for crowds at anti-government protests in Bangkok, Thailand. These musicians were, at once, concerned with political reform and in a position to earn significant amounts of money by playing, in some cases even to launch or bolster careers. In this essay, I investigate the nexus of protest and profit at Thailand's Red Shirt protests as these emerged within a broader economic structure that many have identified as neoliberal. I explore, in conversation with recent anthropological literature on neoliberalism, how an ethnographic investigation of music might in turn help to better define this often nebulous economic condition by foregrounding empirical instances where money and morality intersect. Focusing on a specific musician performing within a particular political movement, I describe the ways that neoliberalism becomes imbricated locally within complex layers of moral practice.