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The Palgrave Companion to LSE Economics pp 487–514Cite as

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Evan Durbin (1906–1948)

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Abstract

Evan Durbin was a democratic socialist, an economist and a politician. In the 1930s, his work was central to the Labour Party’s adoption of economic planning. During and after the Second World War, Durbin championed a socialist planned economy that maximized individual liberty and rejected sectional interests. He was elected as a Labour Member of Parliament in 1945 and served as a junior minister in Clement Attlee’s government. His distinctive formulation of socialism melded economics with ethics and insights drawn from psychology and psychoanalysis, underpinned by a belief in the superiority of English values and institutions. Durbin’s ethical vision and interest in affluence, voter psychology and managerialism informed Labour’s policy debates in the 1950s and ensured the continued relevance of his ideas.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Biographical details throughout this chapter are drawn from Phelps Brown (1951), Ellis (2004a), Durbin (2008) and ‘Marjorie Durban [sic]’, transcript of interview by Keith Hancock for Economic Journal, 1995, Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: COLL MISC 0978.

  2. 2.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘Socialism and the Liberal Tradition’, n.d. [1935–1936]; Brooke (1996: 32). Durbin’s widow, Marjorie, believed it was Phelps Brown who persuaded Durbin to join the Labour Party, a decision that greatly upset Durbin’s mother who ‘thought she was breeding young liberals’ (Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: ‘Marjorie Durban [sic]’, COLL MISC 0978: 88, 98).

  3. 3.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 2/2, handwritten sales figures and graph, n.d.

  4. 4.

    As Ann Oakley has observed, it is ‘impossible to read the intellectual and political history of the 1930s and 1940s without being impressed by the overlapping membership of the different circles participating in the debates and decisions which produced post-war Britain’ (Oakley 2011: 162).

  5. 5.

    Fabian Society Papers, BLPES Archives: J/25/3, Labour Party Policy Committee, Policy No. 197, ‘Memorandum on the Principles of Socialist Planning’, by E.F.M. Durbin (January 1934): 3.

  6. 6.

    See also Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/14, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘The Great Lord Keynes’, Daily Herald, n.d. [22 April 1946].

  7. 7.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 1/1, lecture notes on ‘English Civilisation’, n.d. [early 1930s].

  8. 8.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 1/5, ‘Syllabus of a Special Course of Three Lectures on The Causes of War’, by E.F.M. Durbin, University Extension Lectures Committee, Oxford, 1937: 3–5.

  9. 9.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 5/2, ‘Committees’ (March 1939).

  10. 10.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 2/1/8, ‘Income and Expenditure Account Oct 1938–Sept 1939’ [n.d.].

  11. 11.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: ‘Marjorie Durban [sic]’, COLL MISC 0978: 93–94.

  12. 12.

    National Peace Council, BLPES Archives: 13/3, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘A Four Point Programme’, in The Economic Basis of Peace, Peace Aims Pamphlet No. 16 (London: National Peace Council, n.d. [1942]): 22, 28.

  13. 13.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/3, ‘Economics of Democratic Socialism’, n.d. [1945–1948]. In 1940, Durbin had also identified large-scale nationalisation as an effective, if problematic, strategy to pay for the war while limiting inflation. See Fabian Society Papers, BLPES Archives: K/18/1, War Economics Committee Memorandum No.1, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘The Financing of War’, 12 March 1940.

  14. 14.

    Dalton Papers, BLPES Archives: 2/7/10, Evan Durbin, ‘British Foreign Policy After the War’, 1 April 1943.

  15. 15.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/14, E.F.M. Durbin, MP, ‘Charter of the World Organisation’, House of Commons, 22 August 1945.

  16. 16.

    Durbin to Bassett, 23 June 1945, Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/1. Durbin’s campaign letterhead proclaimed him ‘The Man with a Plan’.

  17. 17.

    To illustrate his ‘jolly’ life in wartime London, Durbin told his wife he sometimes had to wait late into the night at 11 Downing Street to get his detective stories back from Attlee, who read in his study with the blackout curtains open. See Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: ‘Marjorie Durban [sic]’, COLL MISC 0978: 92, 96. John Bew’s recent biography of Attlee, Citizen Clem (Bew 2016), makes no reference to Durbin, but Durbin seems to have been quite an admirer of Attlee both during and after the war. See Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/9, Evan Durbin, ‘C.R.A.’, n.d. [1945–1946].

  18. 18.

    Durbin Papers, 4/7, BLPES Archives: ‘Labour in Power’, n.d. [1946?].

  19. 19.

    Dalton Papers, BLPES Archives: 9/1, ‘Notes of an Informal Discussion on Future Policy and Problems’, 30 July 1945. Participants included Durbin, Crosland, Gaitskell, Richard Crossman and Harold Wilson.

  20. 20.

    Durbin referred to the Cabinet as ‘half old Etonians—and half errand boys’ (Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘The Fundamental Paradoxes’ and ‘The Present Party Position’, n.d. [1946?]).

  21. 21.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/15, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘The Right to Choose Your Job’, Evening Standard, 24 September 1945.

  22. 22.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘Britain’s Economic Crisis’, January 1948; Durbin (1948: 9–10, 23); Jackson (2007: 131–132).

  23. 23.

    Brooke (1991: 699); Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘White Paper on Personal Incomes’, 1948.

  24. 24.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘Incentive in Industry’, n.d. [1945–1948].

  25. 25.

    Phelps Brown (1951: 92); National Peace Council Papers, BLPES Archives: 13/3, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘A Four Point Programme’, in The Economic Basis of Peace, Peace Aims Pamphlet No. 16 (London: National Peace Council, n.d. [1942]): 23. See also Nuttall (2006: 54–61).

  26. 26.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘A New Year Message from Evan Durbin’, n.d. [1946–1947].

  27. 27.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 4/7, ‘The Next Five Years’, n.d. [1947–1948]

  28. 28.

    Fabian Society Papers, BLPES Archives: G/49/10, Report on Weekend Conference on the Psychological and Sociological Problems of Modern Socialism, Session III (15–16 September 1945): 14–18; Nuttall (2006: 56–58).

  29. 29.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/15, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘Beyond Socialism’, Fabian Society, Conference on Labour’s Second Five Years, 4 November 1946.

  30. 30.

    At the same time, he was pressing Herbert Morrison, the Deputy Prime Minister, to increase government funding for psychological research. See Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/15, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘Beyond Socialism’, Fabian Society, Conference on Labour’s Second Five Years, 4 November 1946; Durbin to Morrison, 15 April 1946 and 18 October 1946, Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/14.

  31. 31.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/15, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘Beyond Socialism’, Fabian Society, Conference on Labour’s Second Five Years, 4 November 1946.

  32. 32.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: ‘Marjorie Durban [sic]’, COLL MISC 0978: 101.

  33. 33.

    ‘Mr. E.F.M. Durbin’, The Times, 8 September 1948: 6; Attlee, ‘Foreword: An Appreciation of E.F.M. Durbin’, in Durbin (1949a: vii).

  34. 34.

    Tawney Papers, BLPES Archives: II/90, ‘The Address by Professor R.H. Tawney at the Memorial Service’, 16 September 1948.

  35. 35.

    ‘Mr. E.F.M. Durbin’, The Times, 8 September 1948: 6; Tawney Papers, BLPES Archives: II/90, ‘The Address’.

  36. 36.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 5/2, BBC Listener Research Report, ‘Money’, 9 September 1943.

  37. 37.

    Gaitskell (1940 [1954]): 13; Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: ‘Marjorie Durban [sic]’, COLL MISC 0978: 88; Gaitskell to Robbins, 28 October 1950, Robbins Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/3/9.

  38. 38.

    Durbin engaged in considerable debate with Hayek over his The Road of Serfdom (Hayek 1944). See Durbin (1945).

  39. 39.

    Durbin Papers, BLPES Archives: 3/15, E.F.M. Durbin, ‘Beyond Socialism’, Fabian Society, Conference on Labour’s Second Five Years, 4 November 1946; Ellis (2004b: 69–84).

References

Main Works by Evan Durbin

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  1. Department of History, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

    Catherine Ellis

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  1. Researcher in Economics, London, UK

    Robert A. Cord

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Ellis, C. (2019). Evan Durbin (1906–1948). In: Cord, R.A. (eds) The Palgrave Companion to LSE Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58274-4_19

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