Creating Global Shipping

Abstract

IntroductionIn 1893, Panagi Vagliano foresaw the future of Greek shipping. In an interview conducted in his office in London and published in a Greek newspaper, a reporter described a casual and confident Vagliano, his "right leg folded on his left one, as he usually did, looking towards the window with a childish laugh." Vagliano told the reporter, "I imagine the Greek steam shipping colossal and the Greek shipowner so big that you cannot imagine." 1 When Vagliano gave this interview, Greek nationals owned only 1 percent of the world's shipping fleet. Eighty years later he was proved right: by the 1970s, Greeks owned the largest fleet in the world and Greek shipping tycoons were among the wealthiest people on earth. In the mid-1970s, the Onassis group of shipping companies was one of the world's ten largest independent tanker-owning companies, along with a number of other Greek shipowners. 2 According to the Review of Maritime Transport 2018, "Greece with 17.3% of world tonnage expanded its lead." 3 The Greek shipping industry originated in networked family enterprises dating back to eighteenth-and nineteenth-century island shipping companies. These small, family-owned companies evolved into international trading companies like Panagi Vagliano's, and then reinvented themselves during the twentieth century into ship management and global maritime business groups like Aristotle Onassis's. Creating Global Shipping follows these two leading Greek firms, Vagliano's in the nineteenth century and Onassis's in the twentieth, to explain how Greek firms evolved, survived, and thrived between the 1820s and 1970s, eventually gaining international competitive advantage within the shipping sector.1 Andreas Lemos, H εμπορική ναυτιλία της Xίου [The Commercial Shipping of Chios Island] (Chios: privately published, 1963), 407.

Crisis, capitalism and common policies: Greek and Norwegian responses to common shipping policy efforts in the 1960s and 1970s

“…This was the organizational model that, along with innovations regarding the size of ships and acquisition of bank credits for building them, allowed shipping tycoons, such as Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos, to build their global business groups. 81 82 They were a key factor in the success of the US embargo against Cuba, 83 while others questioned the US-led embargo on Chinese ports and came to dominate the Chinese freight market (with the Norwegians ranking second); 84 a few of them entered key passenger lines (such as the UK-Australia line), infuriating the British; 85 one or two profited, by breaking the embargo during the Rhodesia war, while others established contacts with oilproducing Arab countries. 86 In this context, the EEC was dealt with as a regional organization of secondary importance as long as London (the base for quite a few Greek shipping firms and a pool of credit for all of them) remained outside the Community.…”

Shipping and Globalization in the Post-War Era

“…This stems from the fact that not an individual state, but an international body has the competence to ascertain whether there is compliance and to take action in the case of non-compliance. 47 The background of such 'collective' compliance procedures is the fact that individual states regularly lack the interest and the information to consider taking measures against fellow states. 48…”

“…Subsequent to this incident, networks of public authorities of the port states have emerged in order to enforce international shipping standards more effectively. The underlying idea is that the elimination of 47 Churchill (2012, 777). 48 Beyerlin and Marauhn (2011, 318).…”

“…A 'new aura' of rate-making, 'at best of increased consultation and formalism, at worst of blatant political muscle' emerged. 47 Reflecting the growth of US global power, Latin American countries were also part of the process of using 'restrictive practices to establish and develop national merchant shipping fleets'. 48 By the late 1960s, South American regimes added 'thirty per cent to customs duties for goods carried in foreign ships'.…”

“…53 Despite the presence of BSL and the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL), Elder Dempster was still capable of making spectacular returns in the late 1970s given the Nigerian oil boom. 54 47 'Six Year Revolution'. 48 Iheduru (1992, 297).…”