Milliken

[Doug Henwood]

Brad De Long wrote:

I pointed out that Roger Milliken--American textile capital--thinks 
that AGOA is not in his material interest, suggesting that (as I 
believe) the beneficiaries from AGOA will be (among others) African 
labor.

Milliken is pretty alone in his industry, as far as I know. Most CEOs 
of large companies do not support Pat Buchanan for president, either. 
Nor do they furtively give money to the Citizens Trade Watch.

Doug

Milliken

[Lisa Ian Murray]

Wouldn't it behoove us to find out whether the firms that will make the
textiles etc. are Northern Corps. out to simply set up shop to capture rents
from the wage differential.  If they are, say, US corps. then the suggestion
that some sort of levy or tax on their "import"[ation] into the US so as to
compensate for the retraining of US textile workers for job loss wouldn't be
too off the mark.  As for the idea that it will make African workers more
propserous, could someone suggest a time line so that we could go back and
check on their lives and communities in, say, five-ten years and also see
what the factory conditions are like, whether some of the profits were used
to invest in education, health care, sewage systems etc. or was the capital
just sloshed around in forex markets or confiscated for "debt repayment".
Better yet, although it's too late, were any suggestions made that the firms
making these goods be worker owned or community owned or did they just get
slapped with the WAl-MART model of ownership/ripoff.

Ian

Roger Milliken

[Louis Proyect]

The New Republic, Jan. 10

The man behind the anti-free-trade revolt. Silent Partner 

By RYAN LIZZA 

I'm on the phone with Mike Dolan, the Public Citizen activist who led the
charge against the World Trade Organization in Seattle a month ago. The
lefty Dolan is packing for a much-needed vacation to (where else?) Cuba as
he banters in his friendly, Jesse Ventura-esque voice about his yearlong
effort to bring the anti-free-trade movement to the Pacific Northwest. "I
was the first one out there," he says. "I pulled together a whole lot of
people." Suddenly we're interrupted. "I'm sorry; I have to put you on hold
for a second," he says. Three minutes later, he's back on the line, telling
me he can no longer talk with me. His boss, Lori Wallach, chief Washington
lobbyist for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, has just instructed him
to end our on-the-record conversation. "You and I," he says, "are about to
go on deep background, OK?" 

What's the problem? Something that has been whispered about on the left for
some time now: the suspicion that Roger Milliken--billionaire textile
magnate from South Carolina, founding member of the conservative movement,
and patron of right-wing causes for almost 50 years--has been quietly
financing the anti-globalization efforts of Public Citizen and related
organizations. "This is the dirty little secret in the anti-free-trade
crowd," says one prominent left-of-center activist. If it's true, then a
man who once banned Xerox copiers from his offices because the company
sponsored a documentary about civil rights played a key role in filling the
streets of Seattle with protesters in December. "They were out there [in
Seattle] months in advance. They were paying for offices and computers.
Where did all that money come from?" asks one economist whose organization
is a member of Citizens Trade Campaign, the anti-globalization coalition of
environmental, labor, and other progressive groups dominated by Public
Citizen. Milliken, Public Citizen, and the Citizens Trade Campaign all give
the same answer when asked about a financial relationship: they will
neither confirm nor deny it. But what is clear is that Milliken's
decade-long fight against free trade is finally bearing fruit. 

Full story at: http://www.tnr.com/011000/lizza011000.html


Louis Proyect

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