{"product_id":"empty-vessel","title":"Empty Vessel","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe rise of globalization and financialization as seen from a barge one Swedish barge, to be exact, built in 1979\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat 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  \u003ci\u003eThe Balder Scapa:\u003c\/i\u003e a single barge that served all three roles. Though the name would eventually change to \u003ci\u003eFinnboda 12.\u003c\/i\u003e And then to \u003ci\u003eSafe Esperia.\u003c\/i\u003e And later on, to the \u003ci\u003eBibby Resolution.\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cbr\u003e    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. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003ci\u003eEmpty Vessel\u003c\/i\u003e 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.","brand":"Buchserien.de","offers":[{"title":"Neuware","offer_id":53745814438226,"sku":"9781524712860","price":20.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0615\/7002\/3593\/files\/unnamed_6aad5e7d-7f26-4222-937b-fed085327380.jpg?v=1781455969","url":"https:\/\/www.buchserien.de\/products\/empty-vessel","provider":"Buchserien.de","version":"1.0","type":"link"}