The rise of globalization and financialization as seen from a barge—one Swedish barge to be
exact built in 1979 What do a barracks for British troops in the Falklands War a floating
jail off the Bronx and temporary housing for VW factory workers in Germany have in common? The
Balder Scapa: a single barge that served all three roles. Though the name would eventually
change to Finnboda 12. And then to Safe Esperia. And later on to the Bibby Resolution. And
after that . . . in short a vessel with so many names and so many fates that to keep it in
our sights—as the protagonist of this fascinating economic parable—Ian Kumekawa has no choice
but to call it simply the Vessel. Despite its sturdy steel structure weighing 9 500
deadweight tons the Vessel is a figure as elusive and abstract as the offshore market it comes
to embody: a world of island tax havens exploited labor forces free banking zones
Thatcherism Reaganomics and mass incarceration where even the prisoners are held offshore.
Fitted with modular shipping containers themselves the product of standardized global trade
the ship could become whatever the market demanded. Whether caught in an international dispute
involving Hong Kong Nigeria Indonesia and the Virgin Islands—to be settled in an English
court of law—or flying yet another foreign “flag of convenience” to mask its ownership—the
barge is ever a container for forces much larger than even its hulking self. Empty Vessel is
a jaw-dropping microhistory that speaks volumes about the global economy as a whole. In
following the Vessel—and its Sister Vessel built alongside it in Stockholm—from one thankless
task to the next Kumekawa connects the dots of a neoliberal world order in the making where
regulation is for suckers and “Made in USA” feels almost quaint.
