EGT: How the Shipping Container Changed the World Economy

"The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger"

1. In Chapter one of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and World Economy Bigger", Marc Levinson writes "The key question asked today is no longer how much capital and labor an economy can amass, but how innovation helps employ those resources more effectively to produce more goods and services. " He then goes on to say "Even after a new technology is proven, its spread must often wait until prior investments have been recouped..."and " The economic benefits arise not from innovation itself, but from the entrepreneurs who eventually discover ways to put innovations to practical use...". I found these quotes very interesting because it shows that regardless of what the invention is and who made it, the main benefit of the product will be from the practical implication. For example the use of shipping containers increased dramatically and shipping became faster, more efficient, cheaper and less risky (human risk), only after there was programming of the containers. This programming signaled the end of chaos of the old-time pier at major container terminals. This programming allowed for movements of a vessel to be programmed. 

2. The the development of the shipping container completely changed and brought globalization to a new stage. This development made shipping globally faster, less risky and most importantly cheaper.  The shipping container allowed small cities to take advantage of cheap land and low wages to bring more factories for cheaper transportation. Therefore as more small cities got more factories, they were able to get more involved in global transportation and were able to be major players. In addition Levinson also writes "the cost of bringing raw materials in and sending finished goods out had dropped like a stone" after the development and spread of shipping containers. When he says this, it shows why companies were allowed to move to smaller cites and how the cost of transportation was cheaper. 

3. In this transformation of global transportation the consumers are the main beneficiaries and benefit in various ways, while smaller companies are suffering. First of all, the increase of global transportation and containers increase the number of choices of a product available to consumer. This increase of choices creates more competition and helps regulate prices. The container transportation also helps lower prices because it lowers the transportation cost for the producers, and due to the lower transportation cost, the producers will cut the prices of the products. Local businesses and and countries that want to stay domestic are hurt by globalization because they are forced to play against bigger more global companies in the worldwide economy. This increase of unwanted competition forces the smaller businesses to decrease their price, and in extreme cases  the pressure from foreign producers can force the the local business to close. In addition, the increase of global transportation from the increase of shipping containers, can have a negative impact on unemployment. This is because suppliers can move to other smaller and cheaper countries to take advantage of the lower wages of the workers in the smaller, and underdeveloped places.