Times have changed: In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton urged his countrymen to steal trade secrets. Now, the U.S. is accusing China of the same illicit practices. By PaulWisemanAP
FILE - This June 11, 2018 file photo shows an Alexander Hamilton exhibit called "Alexander Hamilton: Soldier, Secretary, Icon," at Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington. Hamilton, determined to transform America into an industrial power, argued in 1791 that the United States needed “to procure all such machines as are known in any part of Europe.” Trouble was, Britain, the world’s technological leader, closely guarded its advantages.
“The message we are sending to China today is, Do as I say, not as I did,′ ” said Peter Andreas, professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. “The fact of the matter is that the U.S. was the world’s hotbed of intellectual property theft.” “Only after becoming the leading industrial power did it become a champion of intellectual-property protections,” said Andreas, author of “Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America.”
For the 18th century United States to build its economic might, highly skilled or knowledgeable people were just as tempting a target as hardware. In the days before instruction manuals, manufacturers needed workers who knew how to assemble and operate machines acquired from overseas. Wary of the intrusion, Britain officials threatened headhunters with a year in prison for every British worker they recruited to work overseas.
Intellectual pirates were celebrated in the young United States, just as they are now in China. A man who smuggled a cotton-processing machine from London was hailed by one Pennsylvania trade group as “the ingenious artizan who counterfeited the Carding and Spinning Machine” and was promised awards and prizes, according to Andreas’ book. His copycat equipment was displayed on a float in Philadelphia’s July 4 parade of 1788.
By contrast, Congress wouldn’t approve Hamilton’s most ambitious plans for a U.S. industrial policy, Ben-Atar has noted. But the United States back then didn’t really need much help from the government, he said. It enjoyed — and enjoys — an advantage that today’s China doesn’t: Foreigners want to live in America. And those who do bring their knowledge and talent.
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