How the Shipping Container Came to be
Today, we take the oh-so-boring shipping container for granted. Yes, that “corrugated steel box, 8 feet wide, 8.5 feet high and 40 feet long”. In his book, Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy , Tim Harford tells the story behind making it the standard way to transport things. The key word there is “standard” because boy, was there opposition to any standardization: 1) The trucking companies, the shipping companies and the ports couldn’t agree on a standard. Why? Some wanted them big, others small. No one size suited them all. 2) Dock workers felt threatened by standardized sizes. After all, the ease and speed that comes with standardization would almost certainly result in “fewer jobs to go around”. 3) Regulators who defined the rules and pricing policies feared they’d lose their power. And jobs. No wonder then that the idea of a standardized shipping container too so long. The man credi...