Rudolf Hilferding

Rudolf Hilferding (1877-1941) was a Marxist economist and a popularizer of the "economic" reading of Karl Marx. A leading Marxist theorist of his day, identified with the "Austro-Marxian" group. He was the main defender to the challenge to Marx 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.

Hilferding served with Kautsky in the German Socialization Committee in 1918. He was a member of parliament for the Social Democratic Party in Germany and also served as the German Minister of Finance in 1923 and 1928-9. Hilferding was exiled to France in the 1930s and then arrested by the Nazis on Vichy soil in 1940.