Counterfeiting was not invented in modern Asia. When they were backward themselves in terms of knowledge, all of today's rich countries blithely violated other people's patents, trademarks and copyrights. The Swiss 'borrowed' German chemical inventions, while the Germans 'borrowed' English trademarks and the Americans 'borrowed' British copyrighted materials—all without paying what would today be considered 'just' compensation." - Meaning and context.">
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Ch. 6, The lawyers get involved, p. 134
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The historical picture is clear. Counterfeiting was not invented in modern Asia. When they were backward themselves in terms of knowledge, all of today's rich countries blithely violated other people's patents, trademarks and copyrights. The Swiss 'borrowed' German chemical inventions, while the Germans 'borrowed' English trademarks and the Americans 'borrowed' British copyrighted materials—all without paying what would today be considered 'just' compensation.

— Ha-Joon Chang

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The historical picture is clear. Counterfeiting was not invented in modern Asia. When they were backward themselves in terms of knowledge, all of today's rich countries blithely violated other people's patents, trademarks and copyrights. The Swiss 'borrowed' German chemical inventions, while the Germans 'borrowed' English trademarks and the Americans 'borrowed' British copyrighted materials—all without paying what would today be considered 'just' compensation." in the context of "Ch. 6, The lawyers get involved, p. 134" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Ha-Joon Chang" (Quotes, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Ha-Joon Chang#borrowed#trademarks#counterfeiting#materialsall#compensation#copyrighted#historical#themselves#copyrights#inventions#considered
Ha-Joon Chang

About Ha-Joon Chang

Ha-Joon Chang (Hangul: 장하준; hanja: 張夏准; born 7 October 1963) is a South Korean institutional economist specialising in development economics. Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013 Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.