This inaugural issue is dedicated to the question of global inequality in contemporary theories of labor. Both orthodox Marxian framings and contemporary analyses — immaterial labour, rentier capitalism, and platform capitalism — seek to describe how value is created and captured through evolving systems of production, exchange, and technological mediation. Concurrently, longstanding traditions of thought have grappled with the global dimensions of capital accumulation, analyzing how imperialist structures and practices have enabled and shaped the expansion of capital. Given the evolving nature of the social relations that constitute today’s socioeconomic realities, this issue aims to bring together these two bodies of literature, investigating how technological change and shifting patterns of labour and value extraction are reshaping the relationships between global Norths and Souths, and between the so-called centers and peripheries.