Counterfeiting combats Colonisation

Recently the fad of denouncing "fakes, copies, imitations and knock-offs" has become a popular sport with the well heeled South Asian community. These Friedman loving, English-educated, free marketeers think that "faking" is ruining the world's trading system and undermining intellectual property rights around the world. At the same time, US trade officials suppress a chuckle about free trade, and are preparing to subsidise produce growers (people who grow garlic, onions, olives and other foodstuffs of variable quality) in addition to commodities subsidies they already offer on cotton and wheat. This interesting intersection of South Asian stupidity and Western political acumen gave me an idea on how to reverse the wrongs of colonisation.

All of us, atleast in public, deride the damage inflicted on the world by colonisation. But none of us do anything about it. Actually, I think we do. The formerly colonised world is the epicenter of the world's counterfeiting "epidemic". I think there is ironic justice and a great deal of sense in this. I base my arguments on the following points:

1. The Western world's colonisation resulted in a massive loss of resources and human capital which would have been (even taking into account corruption, mismanangement and all other cock) invested into the development of science, technology and creativity. The colonised peoples of this world are today churning out inventions, studies and designs in all MNCs and Western universities, so there is no good reason to believe that they couldn't have done it on their own. To make up for the giant shove backwards that the West inflicted on us, I believe that faking their technology, designs and science is a legitimate way forward. Our people deserve to leave better, healthier and more comfortable lives. The open and mass-scale stealing of intellectual property has served the populations of India, China and Malaysia well and built up the economies of Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I feel that this sudden bone-headed move into the criminalisation of copyright will just stop development in its tracks. People will have to buy over priced books, education, technology, medicine and clothing all to maintain the silly legalese of "intellectual property". Erm, India wants to charge for the use of the zero, the Chinese wants royalties on gunpowder and the Arabs would like marine navigation please.

2. The colonised world today is placed brilliantly to avoid "retaliation" from Western countries. Imagine the US or UK imposing trade embargoes on India or China. The concept is laughable. In the first place, most of these "copyrighted" goods is made in the formerly-colonised world. We could just term it "technology transfer", as the Chinese cynically do. In fact I think their "you want our market, share you're skills" philosophy is the best business strategy for nations dealing with Western companies struggling for growth.

3. The thought of millions of people living in poverty or dying of diseases because MS Word or HIV medication is too expensive is just sickening. The advent of intellectual property added momentum to the already destructive forces of free marketeering. Today the software wallahs and pharmaceutical dons of India/China/Brazil export "property" that could easily save the lives of millions of their countrymen and earn them millions as well.

I am not suggesting that the colonised peoples of this world steal indiscriminately and prevent retribution by force (economic or otherwise). That would just make us as bad as them. But we should let them know that if they want our markets, they'll have to share their technology. At most, it should at long last re-balance the inequities of armed colonisation. At the very least, we should use this opportunity to show the West that you cannot enjoy a free lunch forever.