The Father of Globalisation

I hadn’t noticed that Keith Tantlinger, who may fairly be considered on of the fathers of globalisation, had died. Actually, until I read his obituary in yesterday’s Telegraph I’d never heard of him. Nevertheless, were you to write a history of the last fifty years you’d want to include a chapter on the man who, essentially, invented container shipping and explain how his work helped build the modern world:

The idea of transporting cargos in a sealed metal box is a simple one, and indeed containers had been in use since the 19th century to haul heavy cargo like coal. It was not the box that Tantlinger designed, but the all-important twist-locks, corner posts, cell guides, spreader bars and other paraphernalia which make it possible to lift and lower containers on and off ships and stack them safely. He patented several dozen inventions. His most important design feature was the slotted eyelet at each corner of the container into which a lock, called a twist-lock, could be dropped. The device was based on the principle of a bolt-action rifle. The twist-lock could be lowered into an eyelet and automatically engaged and disengaged from above, without extending beyond the edge of the container. A second container could thus be stacked on top of the first, and the two locked together.

[…] The containerisation revolution had an impact on the patterns of world trade that no one predicted in the early days. By reducing the costs of shipping to a negligible proportion of overall production costs, containers made it cheaper to, for example, have clothes and electrical goods made in Asia then shipped to markets in the West, rather than have then manufactured closer to home.

So while it has helped make a profusion of low-cost goods available to consumers, it has also, arguably, accelerated the decline of manufacturing industry in the West and, indirectly, contributed to current imbalances in the world economy.

This is, perhaps understandably, too gloomy a conclusion. Viewed dispassionately, the container revolution has been a blessing and autilitarian good, helping raise millions, even billions, of people in farflung parts of the world out of poverty and helping the processes that offer them opportunities never before seen in much of asia. That may not be much consolation to textile workers in Lancashire or South Carolina but that’s progress for you. Keith Tantlinger helped make the world a smaller place and a better one too even if, like everything else, this made losers as well as winners.