Robin's innovative political practice
Robin Murray was an extremely unusual figure, in being both an important political intellectual, and a practical activist, animator and enabler of many projects and innovations. He was extremely interested in particulars of all kinds. His articles are full of references to what this social enterprise (it might be one in Bangladesh), this community group, or that cooperative was doing, since he believed that theoretical arguments are only of use if they explain with what is happening in different places and in people’s actual experience.
But he was also deeply involved in the study of economic and organisational theory, and believed such understanding to be essential if we are to make sense of what is happening in the world. “Have you read this?” , Robin would say to me when we met, pointing to some new book or other than one had never heard of. (One of the more recent was about the “zero marginal cost economy” and the changes it may bring about.) His was a continually moving intellectual agenda, as he strove to keep up with the changes that are taking place all the time in our economy and society.
His life-work was a unceasing attempt both to make sense of development in the abstract conceptual terms which he believed to be necessary, and also to understand what such development meant in real life, on the ground, and in terms of how one could try to change the world through action. Carlota Perez has described the impact of Robin’s Capital reading group at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex. Marx’s Capital had a continuing influence on Robin’s own method of work. Theory and practice were more joined-up in his life and work than in anyone else’s I’ve ever known.
Thus, while he was educated and over the years held posts in several universities (for the longest period at IDS) he also developed campaigns for social and public facilities when he and Frances lived in Brighton; he worked for Twin Trading for 25 years; for the Design Council on improving the delivery of health services in some northern cities, and with cooperatives of farmers in many developing countries. He conducted a lengthy campaign, with local authorities, to bring about the recycling of waste (Robin didn’t go in much for hating, but he really did hate incinerators), and, as we will hear later, he held crucial economic posts at the GLC and in the Government of Ontario. He liked working for independent organisations, like Demos and the Young Foundation because they gave him freedom to develop new ideas and sometimes also to implement them practically. In his later years he tried to develop new thinking in the co-operative movement, both in its high organisational structures, and in local co-ops near his homes in Hackney and Cumbria. Although Robin and I were friends over many years, from before 1967 when we worked together on the May Day Manifesto, it was hard to keep track of all the different things he did.
Nevertheless, the crucial thing was that Robin’s work was joined-up – it was a connected evolving project, of both understanding and action. His first two brilliant articles for Marxism Today, “Benetton Britain” in 1985, and “Life after (Henry) Ford” in 1988, set out what was to become an agenda for his subsequent analytical work. These papers introduced the idea of the transition to “post-fordism” and “flexible specialisation” to mainstream British political debate. He explored how developments in technology, modes of production, systems of information, and changes in consumption patterns, were transforming our entire society. Robin believed that If progressives didn’t understand this - and many of them didn’t, - we were lost. The question was, how could the opportunities which these new modes of production and information, and more active and discriminating kinds of consumption, be developed, for the social good?
Well, the London Industrial Strategy of the GLC, and its equivalent in Ontario, the campaign for recycling waste, beginning on the doorstep; the remodelling of health services on intelligent design principles; and the cooperative production and ethical consumption of foods were instances of what Robin thought could be done, which he pursued with his usual immense enthusiasm. Robin didn’t like multi-national corporations and their profit-seeking machinations, (e.g. “transfer pricing”) but he thought we had much to learn from the innovations of firms like Toyota, and not waste too much time in denouncing them.
He believed that the socio-technical changes which were taking place - for example a more educated population, increased access to information through the electronics revolution, and more differentiated aspirations among people- gave scope for the reorganisation of society upon co-operative, decentralised, participatory principles. His work with Schumacher College, and his attempt to persuade the English and Welsh Cooperative movement to take the lead in this development, were realisations of this view.
There is a remarkable interview with him in the journal New Formations, not long before he died, in which he updates his view of “Postfordism”, describing a “post-post Fordism” and the significance of “platforms” (like Facebook, Google and Amazon) as leading-edge features of our modern economy. I think we can all see, as Robin did, how ambiguous these developments are. Robin was developing a view of a restored “commons” (now needing to be virtual as well as physical) as the antithesis to this modern form of informational enclosure. This interview shows Robin to be as curious, inventive and original in his last year of life, as he was at the very beginning of his career.
You may have seen that this week, the government have announced a New Industrial Strategy, only 32 years after Robin proposed a much more ambitious version of this in Marxism Today, but on the basis of a not dissimilar though hitherto entirely neglected analysis of Britain’s economic problems. Under a different government, indeed with Robin’s former colleague at the GLC, John McDonnell, in one of its key roles, one could have imagined Robin making a major contribution to such a strategy.
Well, for this we sadly will have to rely on his writings and his example. As for the writings, they are numerous and substantial. A great many of them are accessible free on-line. I am glad to say in conclusion that Lawrence and Wishart, the publishers of Soundings and New Formations, will be bringing out a Selection of Robin’s Economic and Political Writings in 2019.
This is the text of the talk given by Michael Rustin at the Memorial Meeting for Robin Murray at the Round Chapel in Hackney on November 30 2017.