executive branch decided to “reinterpret” the ban, so we could send
China nuclear generators, sophisticated satellites and
supercomputers.
Right in the midst of that summit, a tiny little report appeared in
the papers. In booming Kwangdong province, the economic miracle
of China, 81 women were burned to death because they were
locked into a factory. A couple of weeks later, 60 workers were
killed in a Hong Kong-owned factory. China’s Labor Ministry
reported that 11,000 workers had been killed in industrial accidents
just in the first eight months of 1993—twice as many as in the
preceding year.
These sort of practices never enter the human rights debate, but
there’s been a big hullabaloo about the use of prison labor—front-
page stories in the Times. What’s the difference? Very simple.
Because prison labor is state enterprise, it doesn’t contribute to
private profit. In fact, it undermines private profit, because it
competes with private industry. But locking women into factories
where they burn to death contributes to private profit.
So prison labor is a human-rights violation, but there’s no right
not to be burned to death. We have to maximize profit. From that
principle, everything follows.
Russia
Radio listener: I’d like to ask about US support for Yeltsin vs.
democracy in Russia.
Yeltsin was the tough, autocratic Communist Party boss of
Sverdlovsk. He’s filled his administration with the old party hacks
who ran things for him under the earlier Soviet system. The West
likes him a lot because he’s ruthless and because he’s willing to ram
through what are called “reforms” (a nice-sounding word).
These “reforms” are designed to return the former Soviet Union
to the Third World status it had for the five hundred years before
the Bolshevik Revolution. The Cold War was largely about the
demand that this huge region of the world once again become what it
had been—an area of resources, markets and cheap labor for the