Rudolf Hilferding (German: [ˈhɪlfɐdɪŋ]; 10 August 1877 – 11 February 1941) was an Austrian-born Marxist economist, socialist theorist, politician and the chief theoretician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the Weimar Republic, being almost universally recognized as the SPD's foremost theoretician of the twentieth century. He was also a physician. He was born in Vienna, where he received a doctorate having studied medicine. After becoming a leading journalist for the SPD, he participated in the November Revolution in Germany and was Finance Minister of Germany in 1923 and from 1928 to 1929. In 1933 he fled into exile, living in Zurich and then Paris, where he died in custody of the Gestapo in 1941. Hilferding was a proponent of the "economic" reading of Karl Marx, identifying with the "Austro-Marxian" group. He was the first to put forward the theory of organized capitalism. He was the main defender of Marxism from critiques by Austrian School economist and fellow Vienna resident Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. Hilferding also participated in the "Crises Debate" – disputing Marx's theory of the instability and eventual breakdown of capitalism on the basis that the concentration of capital is actually stabilizing. He edited leading publications such as Vorwärts, Die Freiheit, and Die Gesellschaft. His most famous work was Das Finanzkapital (Finance capital), one of the most influential and original contributions to Marxian economics with substantial influence on Marxist writers such as Vladimir Lenin and Nikolai Bukharin influencing his writings on imperialism.
Biography
Life in Vienna On 10 August 1877, Rudolf Hilferding was born in Vienna into a prosperous Jewish family, consisting of his parents, Emil Hilferding, a merchant (or private servant), and Anna Hilferding, and of Rudolf's younger sister, Maria. Rudolf attended a public gymnasium from which he graduated as an average student, allowing him access to the university. Directly afterwards, he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study medicine. Even before his school leaving examinations, in 1893 he joined a group of Vienna students who weekly discussed socialist literature and later formed with young university teachers the student-organization Freie Vereinigung Sozialistischer Studenten, whose chairman was Max Adler. This is where Hilferding first intensely came in contact with socialist theories and first became active in the labour movement. The organization also participated in social-democratic demonstrations, which came in conflict with the police, drawing the attention of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ). As a university student, he became acquainted with many talented socialist intellectuals. Aside from his studies of medicine, he studied history, economy, and philosophy. He and his fellow socialist students and friends Karl Renner, Otto Bauer and Max Adler also studied political economy, taught by the Marxist Carl Grünberg, and attended the lectures of the philosopher Ernst Mach, who both influenced Hilferding significantly. He became one of the staunchest supporters of Victor Adler, founder of the SPÖ. Having graduated with a doctorate in 1901, he began working in Vienna as a paediatrician, however not with much enthusiasm. He spent much of his leisure time studying political economy, where his real interest lay, but he would not give up his profession until his first publications gave him success. He also joined the Social-Democratic Party in Austria. In 1902 he contributed to the Social-Democratic newspaper Die Neue Zeit on economic subjects as requested by Karl Kautsky, at that time the most important Marxist theoretician worldwide and who developed a long-lasting personal and political friendship with Hilferding. His collaboration with Kautsky and his regular contributions to the Neue Zeit, the leading theory organ of the socialist movement, made him become a mediator between Kautsky and Victor Adler, trying to reduce their ideological differences. In April 1902, he wrote a review of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk's Karl Marx and the Close of His System (1896) defending Marx's economic theory against Böhm-Bawerk's criticism. He also wrote two significant essays concerning the use of the general strike as a political weapon. Already in 1905, his numerous publications have made him one of the leading social-democratic theoreticians and brought him into close contact with the party leadership of the SPÖ and of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Together with Max Adler, he founded and edited the Marx-Studien, theoretical and political studies spreading Austromarxism until 1923. Karl Renner, Adler and Hilferding founded an association to improve the worker's education, which established Vienna's first school for workers in 1903. Hilferding married the doctor Margarete Hönigsberg, whom he had met in the socialist movement and who was eight years his senior. She also had a Jewish background, had made her exams at the University of Vienna, and was a regular contributor to Die Neue Zeit. Margarete gave birth to their 1st child, Karl Emil. Kautsky worried that Hilferding, who now complained about his lack of time, would neglect his theoretical work in favor of his good social situation as a doctor in Vienna. Kautsky used his connections to August Bebel, who was looking for teachers for the SPD's training center in Berlin, to suggest Hilferding for this position. In July 1906, Bebel recommended Hilferding for this job to the party executive, which agreed to give it to him for six months.
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