By Larry Romanoff, December 17, 2019
There is one factor that contributed heavily to the wealth of America today that US history books seem to neglect. The US government and corporations today produce volumes of propaganda accusing China of copying American products or ideas, of having no respect for American IP, but the Americans for 200 years or more have been the world’s masters of IP theft and product piracy.
During most of the nation’s early existence, American companies freely and without compensation copied everything that was made in Europe. Not only did they freely copy, but the US government erected impossibly high tariff barriers against foreign products, so that the originals from Europe would be too highly-priced to sell in America, while manufacturers of the local copies of course flourished. Moreover, as far back as the late 1800s, the US government often offered cash rewards of US$20,000 to US$50,000 – as much as the earnings of several lifetimes – to anyone who could steal and copy foreign technology, as happened with the cloth weaving machines that were the backbone of British industry for a century.
When the great American Thomas Jefferson was US Ambassador to France, he conspired to steal and smuggle out of Italy a strain of ‘miracle rice’ which was banned for exports and sales to foreigners. Jefferson was a brave man because, diplomatic immunity notwithstanding, the theft was punishable by death had he been caught. This theft process was true with almost every imaginable item. Many English authors despaired of ever selling their popular written works in the US, due to import regulations and high duties but, on travelling to America, were more than surprised to discover their books widely on sale in shops everywhere. When Charles Dickens discovered the extent of the piracy of his works in the US, he wrote a book condemning Americans as thieves, a book which was immediately pirated and offered for sale everywhere in the US.
For most of 200 years the US ignored the IP, the patents, the copyrights, of any person or company in any nation. The truth is that Americans, as Americans, have never invented much of anything, their only domestic creations being hardware that could kill more people faster and from a greater distance. But now being the engineer on the IP train, American firms have suddenly gotten religion and become sanctimoniously possessive, condemning others for precisely the same things they did so freely for so long.
Stephen Mihm wrote an excellent book in which he deals at length with 200 years of American patent and copyright violations and widespread IP theft. He perceptively recognises a “fast and loose brand of commerce” as simply a stage in a nation’s development, a stage which the US experienced in the same way that Japan did 30 years ago and that China is doing today. It is only the moralistic Christianity pervading American society that drives Americans to condemn China today for something they did so freely not very many years ago, and which they still do today. In truth, the US was by far the most rampant thief of all nations in the world’s history.
There is one factor that contributed heavily to the wealth of America today that US history books seem to neglect. The US government and corporations today produce volumes of propaganda accusing China of copying American products or ideas, of having no respect for American IP, but the Americans for 200 years or more have been the world’s masters of IP theft and product piracy.
During most of the nation’s early existence, American companies freely and without compensation copied everything that was made in Europe. Not only did they freely copy, but the US government erected impossibly high tariff barriers against foreign products, so that the originals from Europe would be too highly-priced to sell in America, while manufacturers of the local copies of course flourished. Moreover, as far back as the late 1800s, the US government often offered cash rewards of US$20,000 to US$50,000 – as much as the earnings of several lifetimes – to anyone who could steal and copy foreign technology, as happened with the cloth weaving machines that were the backbone of British industry for a century.
When the great American Thomas Jefferson was US Ambassador to France, he conspired to steal and smuggle out of Italy a strain of ‘miracle rice’ which was banned for exports and sales to foreigners. Jefferson was a brave man because, diplomatic immunity notwithstanding, the theft was punishable by death had he been caught. This theft process was true with almost every imaginable item. Many English authors despaired of ever selling their popular written works in the US, due to import regulations and high duties but, on travelling to America, were more than surprised to discover their books widely on sale in shops everywhere. When Charles Dickens discovered the extent of the piracy of his works in the US, he wrote a book condemning Americans as thieves, a book which was immediately pirated and offered for sale everywhere in the US.
For most of 200 years the US ignored the IP, the patents, the copyrights, of any person or company in any nation. The truth is that Americans, as Americans, have never invented much of anything, their only domestic creations being hardware that could kill more people faster and from a greater distance. But now being the engineer on the IP train, American firms have suddenly gotten religion and become sanctimoniously possessive, condemning others for precisely the same things they did so freely for so long.
Stephen Mihm wrote an excellent book in which he deals at length with 200 years of American patent and copyright violations and widespread IP theft. He perceptively recognises a “fast and loose brand of commerce” as simply a stage in a nation’s development, a stage which the US experienced in the same way that Japan did 30 years ago and that China is doing today. It is only the moralistic Christianity pervading American society that drives Americans to condemn China today for something they did so freely not very many years ago, and which they still do today. In truth, the US was by far the most rampant thief of all nations in the world’s history.
