Interesting. Democratizing ownership and control of productive assets is fundamental to the wider distribution of the product of capitalism, and Web 2.0 technology has combined with fintech to concentrate much of that ownership and control in recent years. Hence our growing inequality problem.

But I’m not sure what and how deep a role DLT will play, especially crypto-currencies. The promise of BC is to eliminate information asymmetries and the need for agency, the cost of which adds considerably to the transactions costs in markets. Just look at what a real estate agent makes on a sale, coming and going. That’s highly inefficient and permeates the FIRE and legal industries.

Asset ownership is important for one main reason: it’s how our legal system assigns risks and rewards and thus greatly influences the distribution of wealth and income. That’s why workers, even skilled workers are getting left behind in globalization -it’s difficult to assign risk and reward beyond the actual wage contract. But control over those assets and the risks and returns assigned to them is just as crucial. Lack of control is why shareholders get the short end of the stick every time in a conflict with management or other large stakeholders like lenders.

It seems to me that crypto as digital tokenization may offer the way forward to a wider distribution of the productivity of capitalism. Tokens can be assigned to one’s participation in a market/social ecosystem and be used to ensure that behaviors within the system are consistent with community standards. In other words, governance becomes more democratic, competitive, and accountable. This will be more critical as personal information data becomes the most productive asset. But it always comes down to who owns and controls the productive assets or the legal rights to such. Be sure to own your robot!