Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge

一艘1979年建造的瑞典駁船，名為「巴爾德‧斯卡帕」（Balder Scapa），如何見證了全球化和金融化的興起？

這艘駁船的命運多舛，曾經作為福克蘭戰爭中的英國軍隊兵營、布朗克斯的漂浮監獄，以及德國大眾汽車工廠工人的臨時住房。隨著時間的推移，它的名字不斷更迭，先後被稱為「芬博達12號」(Finnboda 12)，接著是「安全‧埃斯佩里亞號」(Safe Esperia)，然後是「比比堅毅號」(Bibby Resolution)，總而言之，這艘船有著如此多的名字和命運，以至於作為這部引人入勝的經濟寓言的主角，伊恩‧庫梅卡瓦（Ian Kumekawa）只能簡單地稱它為「船」。

儘管這艘船結實的鋼鐵結構，總重9500噸，但它的身影卻如同它所代表的離岸市場般難以捉摸且抽象：一個充滿島嶼避稅天堂、被剝削的勞動力、自由銀行區、撒切爾主義、里根經濟學和大規模監禁的世界，甚至連囚犯也被關押在離岸地區。這艘船裝配了模組化的集裝箱，它們本身就是標準化全球貿易的產物，船隻能根據市場需求變成任何東西。無論是參與一場涉及香港、奈及利亞、印尼和維京群島的國際爭端——這些爭端會在英國法院裁決——還是掛上外國“便利旗幟”來掩蓋其所有權，這艘駁船永遠是更大力量的容器，這些力量比它自己還要龐大。

Empty Vessel是一部令人瞠目結舌的微觀歷史，深刻揭示了全球經濟的運作。通過追蹤這艘駁船——以及它在斯德哥爾摩建造的姐妹船——從一個又一個艱辛任務到另一個，庫梅卡瓦將新自由主義世界秩序的發展勾連在一起，這是個以規範為笑柄，「美國製造」已經顯得有些過時的時代。

The rise of globalization and financialization as seen from a barge—one Swedish barge, to be exact, built in 1979

"The many-headed hydra of neoliberalism has found its chronicler." —Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton

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.