Marxism Today_Jacques

Life After Henry (Ford)

By Martin Jacques

My homework for writing this short piece about Robin Murray was to read some of his articles. What a joy and a pleasure it has been. Articles written over three decades ago almost invariably show their age. The context has changed, what were then contemporary events have faded into the past, ideas have shifted, preoccupations have moved on. Somehow, quite remarkably, none of this is true of Robin’s articles. They still possess an extraordinary freshness and contemporary relevance.

Let me describe the moment when Robin first burst into my life. I had been editing Marxism Today for a decade and by the late eighties I had a growing feeling that we needed to move on, that two of our great themes, namely Thatcherism and the decline of the left, felt a little tired; we were, to be blunt, stuck. We needed to think afresh, move on, turn over a new leaf. To this end I decided to organise a residential weekend seminar, our first, and invited I guess around thirty people, one of whom was Robin, who I knew only slightly at the time. All MT’s top writers were there, the brains that had shaped and driven the project, together with others. If my memory serves me correct, Robin was our first speaker, his subject Fordism and post-Fordism. He was brilliant. He wasn’t just the first speaker, he proved to be the star performer. His talk was the talk of the weekend. Robin was, of course, a fine speaker, possessed of an irresistible infectious enthusiasm. He spoke with great knowledge of the subject but grounded it in an array of examples that were a constant reminder that Robin was not just an intellectual but also a practitioner. In less than an hour, he moved the argument on, he presented us with a different way of thinking, a new paradigm, about where we were, what was happening, what we needed to understand and where we needed to go. By the time he finished, those in the room were in a different place. He argued that Thatcherism had undermined the left not simply because it was a formidable political argument and project: more important, Thatcherism was a response to fundamental changes in the economy and society and it was the latter which we had failed to understand and come to terms with. Let me quote from Robin’s subsequent article in Marxism Today (October 1988, p. 12) that was based on his talk: ‘The point is that neither the EETPU’s [at the time a right-wing revisionist trade union – MJ] policy nor that of Mrs Thatcher should be read as purely political. There is a material basis to both, rooted in changes in production.’ 

Robin’s argument was that Fordism – a system based on mass production, assembly lines, standardised products and mass markets, was in rapid decline and was being usurped by what he called post-Fordism, a system characterised by flexible production, based on just-in-time principles and geared to an increasingly differentiated market. In this system, distribution and retailing played a far more important role that it did in the Fordist era when production was overwhelmingly dominant. The shift in the model of production was accompanied by profound social and cultural changes, with the progressive emergence of a new kind of society, a post-Fordist society. He argued that a major part of the reason for the success of Thatcherism was its awareness of these changes, in contrast to a left which by and large was not. His argument was a formidable challenge to the left. In subsequent issues of Marxism Today we sought to explore the implications of Robin’s argument, most notably in October 1988 when we published a special issue on New Times, with Robin’s article ‘Life After Henry (Ford)’, the opening piece in what proved to be by far our best-ever selling issue. It is important to emphasise the novelty of Robin’s thesis at the time: thirty years later, Fordism has largely disappeared and post-Fordism, economically and culturally, reigns supreme. We now take Robin’s argument for granted; in 1988 we were largely unaware of it.

Another example of Robin’s far-sightedness, his ability to understand which way things were moving and to anticipate the shape of the future is well-illustrated by a slightly earlier article titled ‘Public Sector Possibilities’ (Marxism Today, July 1986), written at a time when the public sector and nationalisation were deeply unfashionable. Influenced by his work with the Greater London Enterprise Board, he provides a powerful critique of what was wrong with the public sector, why it is so important, and, most interestingly, a ten-point programme setting out the principles that should inform it. Far from being weighed down by the fact that the article is now 34 years old, in fact it resonates powerfully with the present. Public ownership is once more very much back on the agenda unlike in the 1980s when Robin wrote the article. Three factors are driving the change: widespread market failures, a pandemic that has underlined the indispensability of the state economically and socially, and the growing recognition in much of the developing world of the fundamental importance of the state in economic development. In the 1980s, Anglo-American neo-liberalism was dominant, today it is in deep crisis. In its place, the rise of East Asia, and above all China, have shown how the state is crucial to the future. In his fascinating ten-point programme for the public sector, two of his points chime with my own experience of China’s public sector, namely the importance of a pluralistic public sector embracing many different forms of ownership and control, and the need for the public services to compete without restriction in the market.

Robin’s ability to be in touch with the times and grasp the nature of the future had much to do with the fact that he was both a theorist and a practitioner. His work with the Great London Enterprise Board and Fair Trade, for example, lent his writing a richness and relevance which is rare amongst academics. He was always abreast with and curious about what was happening in the real world. His mind was always on the move. That is why his writing remains so relevant and powerful today. 

August 2020

All images courtesy of the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust.