Out of curiosity, where do logistics fit into the categorization you use? I ask because we seem to be measuring only by top-line numbers like mph, but mph was never the point in the first place—now almost everyone in the country can get almost anything made anywhere in the country dropped on their front porch in ~2 days. In real terms this is a radical increase in speed for transport of goods.
My guess is something like the overlap of transport and information; logistics is information applied to transport. It doesn’t change the thesis really, I just notice that a lot of things we now rely on that they didn’t have during the periods of high growth is the notion of on net, which we now apply very widely but in the 19th-20th centuries prior to computers was represented chiefly by manufacturing and notions like vertical integration.
Out of curiosity, where do logistics fit into the categorization you use? I ask because we seem to be measuring only by top-line numbers like mph, but mph was never the point in the first place—now almost everyone in the country can get almost anything made anywhere in the country dropped on their front porch in ~2 days. In real terms this is a radical increase in speed for transport of goods.
My guess is something like the overlap of transport and information; logistics is information applied to transport. It doesn’t change the thesis really, I just notice that a lot of things we now rely on that they didn’t have during the periods of high growth is the notion of on net, which we now apply very widely but in the 19th-20th centuries prior to computers was represented chiefly by manufacturing and notions like vertical integration.
Yes, I put logistics under transportation. Transportation of cargo has always been more important than passenger travel.
Containerization was huge, but it mostly happened 50+ years ago.