The Box: Shipping Container Article (Blog Post)

Chris Monsour
Chuck Stull
Economics for Global Travelers
9 May 2014

a. I found the paragraph describing how the shipping container built a new economy to be very interesting. Sleepy harbors that once saw little to no day-to-day action were moved into the front ranks of the world's ports overnight, while new, massive ports were sprouting up all over the world. It was very interesting to see how the container affected countries, particularly poorer ones. "Poor countries, desperate to climb the rungs of the ladder of economic development, could realistically dream of becoming suppliers to wealthy countries far away." The container left it's mark in globalization and world trade giving hope to countries and cities that never thought there would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

b. The author saw the development of the shipping container as crucial to globalization, particularly in the ways the container aided in stabilizing and developing economies in countries and cities, aided in the reach of firms that could once only service domestic areas, and aided in both national and international consumerism, giving consumers and countries more choices with the products they choose to purchase for consumption or business-use. A shipping container from Malaysia can end up in Ohio, 16 days later, unopened and unaltered by people. The container has changed the way the world market works, making it more convenient for all countries to participate in global trade.

c. Domestic manufacturers may suffer in the transformation of global transportation, much as how it was described in the article. If it is cheaper to buy headphones made in Asia than it is to buy them in America, Americans will measure up the reliability and price of the products and most likely opt for the foreign headphones. Though this is not always the case, it is the principle behind the matter. Cheap global trade makes domestic manufacturing and sales more difficult. At the same time, the evolution of global transportation has created a market of competition that constantly keeps market players such as countries and big businesses on their toes doing everything they can to attract and keep their consumers.



Even as it helped destroy the old economy, the container helped build a new one. Sleepy harbors such as Busan and Seattle moved into the front ranks of the world's ports, and massive new ports were built in places like Felixstowe, in England, and Tanjung Pelepas, in Malaysia, where none had been before. Small towns, distant from the great population centers, could take advantage of their cheap land and low wages to entice factories freed from the need to be near a port to enjoy cheap transportation. Sprawling industrial complexes where armies of thousands manufactured products from start to finish gave way to smaller, more specialized plants that shipped components and half-finished goods to one another in ever lengthening supply chains. Huge industrial complexes mushroomed in places like Los Angeles and Hong Kong, only because the cost of bringing raw materials in and sending finished goods out had dropped like a stone.¹