Evan Frank Mottram Durbin

Evan Frank Mottram Durbin (1 March 1906 – 3 September 1948), commonly known as E. F. M. Durbin, was a British economist and Labour Party politician. He was a significant intellectual figure in the development of democratic socialist thought in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s, advocating for a mixed economy and economic planning within a democratic framework. His promising career was tragically cut short by his early death.

1. Early Life and Education
2. Academic Career
3. Political Career
4. Major Economic and Political Contributions 4.1. Democratic Socialism and Planning 4.2. Critique of Laissez-Faire Capitalism 4.3. The Economics of a Socialist State 4.4. Role of Public Ownership 4.5. Ethics and Economics
5. Influence and Legacy
6. Personal Life and Death
7. List of Major Works
8. See Also
9. References
10. External Links

Evan Durbin was born in Bude, Cornwall, England. His father was a Baptist minister. He was educated at Taunton School and then won a scholarship to New College, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), obtaining a first-class honours degree in 1928. At Oxford, he was part of a notable generation of socialist intellectuals, including Hugh Gaitskell, with whom he formed a close friendship and intellectual partnership.

After Oxford, Durbin spent a year at University College London, studying under Hugh Dalton and Lionel Robbins at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he was exposed to contemporary economic debates, including the socialist calculation debate.

Durbin became a lecturer in economics at the London School of Economics in 1930, a position he held (with wartime interruption) until 1945. At LSE, he was known for his engaging teaching style and his commitment to applying economic theory to practical social problems. His academic work focused on monetary theory, trade cycle theory, and the economics of socialism. He was deeply involved in the intellectual ferment of the 1930s, engaging with the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, and other leading economists.

During World War II, Durbin served as a temporary civil servant, initially in the Economic Section of the War Cabinet Secretariat (alongside John Maynard Keynes and other prominent economists) and later as a personal assistant to Clement Attlee, then Deputy Prime Minister. This wartime experience provided him with practical insights into economic management and planning.

Durbin was a committed member of the Labour Party from his university days. He was a leading figure in the New Fabian Research Bureau (later the Fabian Society), contributing significantly to its policy research and publications. He believed strongly in the power of rational argument and empirical evidence to advance socialist aims.

In the 1945 general election, Durbin was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Edmonton. In Parliament, he quickly established himself as a thoughtful and articulate advocate for the Attlee government's policies. In 1947, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works, a junior ministerial role. He was seen as a rising star within the Labour Party, with many predicting a future cabinet position.

Durbin's work was central to the intellectual project of defining a feasible and desirable form of democratic socialism for Britain.

Durbin was a key theorist of democratic socialism, seeking to reconcile socialist objectives with individual liberty and democratic institutions. He argued that economic planning was essential to overcome the perceived failings of unregulated capitalism (such as unemployment, inequality, and instability) but insisted that such planning must be democratic and avoid the totalitarian tendencies of Soviet-style communism.

• In The Politics of Democratic Socialism (1940), he outlined a vision of a socialist society that valued freedom, equality, and fellowship, achieved through democratic means.
• He advocated for a "planned democracy" where the state would guide economic activity towards socially desirable ends, using a range of tools including fiscal policy, monetary policy, and public ownership of key industries.

Durbin provided a reasoned critique of laissez-faire capitalism, arguing that it was inherently unstable, prone to cyclical unemployment (as explored in Purchasing Power and Trade Depression), and led to unacceptable levels of social and economic inequality. He believed that the pursuit of private profit alone could not guarantee social welfare.

Durbin engaged directly with the socialist calculation debate, particularly the criticisms leveled by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek regarding the impossibility of rational economic calculation under socialism.

• In Problems of Economic Planning (1935, essays collected posthumously in 1949), he, along with other market socialists like Oskar Lange and H.D. Dickinson, argued that a socialist economy could utilize market mechanisms and price signals for efficient resource allocation, even with public ownership of the means of production.
• He envisioned a system where managers of publicly owned firms would be instructed to follow rules mimicking competitive market behavior (e.g., equating price to marginal cost).

Durbin supported public ownership (nationalization) of key "commanding heights" of the economy, such as coal, transport, and utilities. However, he did not advocate for wholesale nationalization of all industries. He saw public ownership as a tool to achieve specific objectives like improved efficiency, better coordination, and greater public accountability, rather than an end in itself. He believed in a mixed economy where public and private sectors could coexist.

A distinctive feature of Durbin's work was his explicit integration of ethical considerations into economic analysis. He believed that economic policy should be guided by moral values and that socialism offered a morally superior alternative to capitalism because it promoted greater equality, social justice, and fellowship.

• Durbin was a highly influential figure in shaping the intellectual foundations of the post-war Labour government's program. His ideas on planning, public ownership, and the mixed economy resonated with the pragmatic approach of the Attlee administration.
• He contributed significantly to the development of social democratic thought in Britain, providing a theoretical basis for a "middle way" between laissez-faire capitalism and totalitarian communism.
• His work on the economics of socialism and his engagement with the socialist calculation debate were important contributions to 20th-century economic thought.
• His early death deprived the Labour Party and British public life of a significant intellectual and political talent. Historians often speculate on the greater role he might have played had he lived longer, particularly in the ideological debates within the Labour Party in the 1950s.

Durbin married Marjorie Green in 1932; they had three children, including Elizabeth Durbin, who also became an economist and wrote a biography of her father.

On September 3, 1948, while on holiday at Strangles Beach, near Bude, Cornwall, Evan Durbin drowned while attempting to rescue his daughter and another child who had gotten into difficulty in the sea. He was 42 years old. His death was widely mourned as a great loss to British politics and intellectual life.

• Purchasing Power and Trade Depression: A Critique of Under-Consumption Theories (1933)
• The Problem of Credit Policy (1935)
• Socialist Credit Policy (1936, with Hugh Gaitskell and W.R. Hiskett)
• The Politics of Democratic Socialism (1940)
• What Have We To Defend? A brief critical examination of the British social tradition (1942)
• Problems of Economic Planning: Papers on Planning and Economics (published posthumously, 1949)

• Democratic socialism
• Mixed economy
• Socialist calculation debate
• Market socialism
• Labour Party (UK)
• Fabian Society
• Hugh Gaitskell
• Clement Attlee
• Hugh Dalton