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]

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.