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"Twenty-first century imperialism has changed its form. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, it was explicitly related to colonial control; in the second half of the 20th century it relied on a combination of geopolitical and economic control deriving also from the clear dominance of the United States as the global hegemon and leader of the capitalist world dealing with the potential threat from the Communist world. It now relies more and more on an international legal and regulatory architecture-fortified by various multilateral and bilateral agreements-to establish the power of capital over labor. This has involved a "grand bargain," no less potent for being implicit, between different segments of capital. Capitalist firms in the developing world gained some market access (typically intermediated by multinational capital) and, in return, large capital in highly developed countries got much greater protection and monopoly power, through tighter enforcement of intellectual property rights and greater investment protections."

"This has fundamental implications for how one thinks about current challenges. Globalisation and technological change are often portrayed as exogenous forces sweeping across the rich countries, inexorably driving up inequality and forcing workers to accept wage stagnation (and often less security) if they are to hold on to their jobs. Instead, the variation in country experiences shows how much institutions and policy responses matter to how these forces - themselves subject to human agency rather than God-given - play out in the job market and affect household disposable incomes. Wage-setting institutions clearly have a critical influence. The Belgian combination of wages indexed to inflation, collective agreements covering most workers, and a high minimum wage underpinned significant wage growth across the distribution. In Australia, the extension of collectively negotiated employment terms and conditions over much of the work force, together with a very high minimum wage, play a key role. By contrast, the remarkably poor earnings performance of the UK over the last decade is in a context where wage bargaining has become individualised."

This article speaks to a trend of using blockchain technology to document contracts for the time, use, consumption, etc. of all resources required to fulfill those agreements. That information has considerable bearing on the availability, replenishment, refurbishment, or replacement of such resources, which is particularly useful to those who own / control them for reasons of pricing, inventory, and costs, as well as input to design specifications for algorithms that analyze behavior in the system.