Fake Products and Counterfeit Goods in Premodern China and Japan – Regulations, Guilds and Ethical Constraints

Faux produits et marchandises contrefaites dans la Chine et le Japon prémodernes

Guillaume Carré () and Christian Lamouroux ()
Additional contact information
Guillaume Carré: CCJ (UMR8173) - Chine, Corée, Japon (UMR 8173) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - UPD7 - Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Christian Lamouroux: CCJ (UMR8173) - Chine, Corée, Japon (UMR 8173) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - UPD7 - Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper is devoted to the problem of false products and copying, exemplified by substandard silk in Song China and false medicine in Edo Japan. These two societies are viewed as hallmarks of growing trade and social change. Our approach focuses on three points: 1) the impact of merchants and brokers on the stability and legality of commercial transactions; 2) the everlasting negotiations between the organizations of merchants or craftsmen and the authorities, whose main goal was to maintain public order; 3) the classifications by the users and customers, including the administration, of the products meeting various quality standards. As a first conclusion, it appears that the quality of goods mainly depended on two factors: 1) merchants'ethics and their profit orientation; 2) the compromises which emerged from the negotiations, or what we have called "l'échange honnête." Last but not least, it seems that a new concern regarding the ban on false products emerged from the development of merchant society and so was the result of economic competition in the two processes of production and circulation.

Keywords: Histoire; marchandises; contrefaçon; faux produits; Edo (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00525895v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident, 2010, 32 (32), pp.115-161. ⟨10.4000/extremeorient.112⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00525895v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00525895

DOI: 10.4000/extremeorient.112

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().