A common thread throughout his work was how collaboration, rather than competition, could be a driving force behind economic development and provide the foundation for non-exploitative and egalitarian societies.
Her father was Joseph Rowntree Gillett, a banker and social philanthropist who went to work full time in the Rhondda Valley to alleviate suffering in the coalfields during the 1920s and 1930s.
Stephen was heavily involved in the events of 1948 leading to the split of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers from the Labour Party, over the question of communist membership.
[4] The third of four sons, Robin's older brothers were Gilbert (1931–1963) a physicist and alpinist who died in a rockfall on Fox Glacier, New Zealand; and Alexander (1934-) who is a medieval historian.
During the 1970s Murray played a critical role in the Brighton Labour Process Group which provided a series of papers for the inaugural Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) in the 1970s.
For two decades at the IDS, Murray's academic work focused on industrial strategy, trade policy, Marxist theory, flexible specialization, and international corporate taxation.
The latter set out an action plan to regenerate London's economy in a socially sustainable way, creating a blueprint for the Labour Party's future national economic policies.
In the months leading up to the abolition of the GLC, Murray and his colleagues created the Third World Information Network (Twin) which initially imported goods from the Global South in solidarity with the co-operative movement.
Reflecting on his experience at the GLC, Robin Murray wrote a number of highly influential articles in Marxism Today on the emergent subject of ‘post-Fordism’.
These and other projects developed and refined Murray's thoughts on the critical role of design in public service reform and social innovation.
Murray was able to continue his work in this area as a visiting fellow at Nesta (2008–2010) and The Young Foundation (2008 – onwards) where he led a major research project examining the ways to design, develop and grow social innovation.
[16] His paper in the volume stated that the arm's length principle for transfer pricing had become problematic for international trade, referring to customs literature for issues on how to carry out the accounting.
[17] He mentioned two other public policy approaches: anti-monopoly legislation, and bilateral bargaining to correct the asymmetry present in trading relationships, with state intervention.
[19] Murray's widely used teaching case study on bargaining over access to North Sea oil deposits showed how the choice of the discount rate affected the distribution of rents between the state and the private sector.
Building on this case-study and drawing on the work of Constantine Vaitsos[20] on the pharmaceutical industry, Murray convened an influential conference on transfer pricing at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex in 1975.
[1] Barratt Brown, a personal friend, had retired from Northern College for Residential and Community Adult Education in 1983 and come to work with Murray at the GLC.
[21] The British government Department for International Development commissioned a report Understanding and Expanding Fair Trade from Barratt Brown, Murray and Pauline Tiffen.
[25] Writing on the subject in the 1980s, at a time when Keynesian macro-economic policies appeared to have run their course, Murray viewed both the Thatcherite imposition of rational choice models onto the British public sector and the Soviet system as outdated expressions of Fordism – characterised by centralised but fragmented organisation, standardised processes, hierarchical management, deskilled labour and passive end users.
For example, he led a multi-year programme of support for industrial policy in Cyprus in the late 1980s, promoting the development of clusters of small and medium-sized firms serving niche markets.
Murray viewed those innovative industries abandoning classical Fordism as harbingers of future competitiveness in a post-Fordist economy and as potential carriers of new progressive social relations.
He saw the potential of information technology as a tool for the coordinated differentiation and devolution of public services, applying the ‘just-in-time’ data flows, production and distribution of clothing giants such as Benetton.
The incorporation of a strong civil society with public and private initiatives was key to Murray's vision of an environmentally and socially-sustainable world derived from post-Fordist principles.
He developed this vision through existing case studies, drawing on his work with cooperatives and environmental advocacy groups, healthcare coalitions and social entrepreneurs.