Let's talk about human rights in one of our major trading partners -- China.

During the Asia Pacific summit in Seattle [in November, 1993], Clinton announced that we'd be sending more high-tech equipment to China. This was in violation of a ban that was imposed to punish China for its involvement in nuclear and missile proliferation. The 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 little tiny 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.