Introduction of Shipping Containers Essay

Until the 1960s, shipping had non changed frequently in decades. Handling cargo was a labor-intensive activity, and dit bells and timeswhether by land or by oceanwere massive obstacles to trade, often making transcontinental, let al ace worldwide, and trade sparing onlyy unfeasible. However something happened that changed that. That was the invention of the shipping container. The birth of the shipping container dates back to April 26, 1956 when a crane lifted fifty-eight aluminum truck bodies aboard an a ship c exclusivelyed the Ideal-X docked in Newark, New Jersey.Five days later, the ship sailed in Houston, where fifty- eight trucks waited to mystify on the metal boxes and take them to their destinations. This heralded the blood line of a new era. Decades have passed since that fateful day which changed the instauration. Today we die in a globalized world so it is very difficult for us to even imagine the extent to which the container changed the world. In 1956, China w as non the worlds workshop. It was not common to find Japanese electronics and cars in the spirit of Dhaka. Western apparel brands didnt have their products manufactured in Bangladesh either. in the lead the advent of the container, transporting goods was expensive. So expensive that it did not soften to ship more(prenominal) things halfway across the country, much less halfway around the world. The entering of the container had an enormous impact upon the worlds economy. The masses of poorly compensable workers who once made their livings loading and unloading ships ended up losing their jobs. Cities that had been centers of naval commerce for ages, such as New York and Liverpool, saw their harbors decline over delinquent(p) to them being unsuited to the container trade.Merchant sailors, who had sailed out to see the world, had their traditional days-long prop up leave in exotic harbors replaced by a a few(prenominal) hours ashore at a remote parking lot for containers, their vessel diligent to weigh anchor the instant the high-speed cranes finished putting huge metal boxes off and on the ship. But even as it helped drop off the old economy, the container helped build a new one. Harbors such as Busan and Seattle travel into the front ranks of the worlds ports, and massive new ports were built in places like Felixstowe, in England, and Tanjung Pelepas, in Malaysia.Small towns, removed away from the cities, could take advantage of their cheap land and low final renderment to attracted factories freed from the need to be near a port to enjoy cheap transportation. Extensive industrial complexes where thousands of workers manufactured products from start to finish gave way to punyer, more specialized plants that shipped components and half-finished goods to one another in ever lengthening supply chains. Poor countries, fearsome for economic development, could realistically dream of becoming suppliers to wealthy countries far away. long industria l complexes were built in places Los Angeles and Hong Kong, only because the cost of bringing crude materials in and sending finished goods dropped extensively. The container made shipping cheap, and by doing so changed the economic geographics of the world. It was now easier than ever before to transport goods all over the world. Goods could now be manufactured any(prenominal)where and sold anywhere. give thanks to the container the world had become a smaller place.This new economic geography allowed firms whose ambitions had been purely domestic to become international companies, allowing them to export their products and selling them abroad almost as effortlessly as selling them nearby. Those who had no bank to go international learned that they had no choice. Whether they liked it or not, they were competing globally because the global market was coming to them. High shipping costs no longer offered protection to high-cost producers whose biggest advantage was being geograp hically close to their customers. correct with customs duties and time delays, factories in Malaysia could deliver blouses to Macys in harbinger Square more cheaply than could blouse manufacturers in the nearby lofts of New Yorks garment district. The world was full of small manufacturers selling locally in 1956 but by the end of the twentieth century, purely local markets for goods of any sort were extremely rare. The container as useful as it was to facilitating economic gain was not warmly received by the workers. The workers, as consumers gained plenty due to the container. They enjoyed infinitely more choices thanks to the global trade stimulated by the consumer.The increased trade brought about an increased level of competition which held prices down. Consumers all over the world enjoyed higher living standards due to the ready availableness of inexpensive imported consumer goods. However as wage earners the workers werent in any case receptive of containers. In the years a fter World War II, wartime destruction created vast demand while low levels of international trade kept competitive forces under control.In this exceptional environment, workers and trade unions in northwards America, Western Europe, and Japan were able to egotiate nearly continuous improvements in wages and benefits, while government programs provided ever stronger safety nets. The workweek grew shorter, disability accept was made more generous, and retirement at sixty or lxii became the norm. The container helped bring an end to that unprecedented advance. Low shipping costs helped gear up capital even more mobile, increasing the bargaining power of employers against their far less mobile workers. In this highly integrated world economy, the pay of workers in Dhaka sets limits on wages in New York.For manufacturers it became more preferable to manufacture abroad in underdeveloped countries as pay and work place standards are low in underdeveloped countries. How much the conta iner matters to the world economy is impossible to quantify. In the ideal world, we would like to hold up how much it cost to send one thousand mens shirts from Dhaka to Toronto in 1955, and to track how that cost changed as containerization came into use. Such selective information do not exist, but it seems clear that the container brought sweeping reductions in the cost of moving freight.From a ship carrying a few dozen containers that would not fit on any other vessel, container shipping matured into a highly automated, highly standardized industry on a global scale. An enormous containership eject be loaded with a infinitesimal fraction of the labor and time required to handle a small conventional ship half a century ago. A few crew members can manage the entire vessel. A trucker can deposit a trailer at a customers loading dock, hook up another trailer, and drive on immediately, sort of than watching his expensive rig stand idle while the content are removed.All of those changes are consequences of the container revolution. Transportation has become so good that for many purposes, freight costs do not much inwardness economic decisions. Containerization has without a doubt changed the world. It has caused time-space compression that has greatly impacted economic geography. Places far away could now transfer all kinds of goods between them due to shipping containers. In simple words it has made the world a smaller place.