Popularizer and propounder of the "economic" reading of Karl Marx, Hilferding was one of the leading Marxian theorists of his day. A Vienna economist and friend of Kautsky, he was the main responder (1904) to the challenge to Marx by fellow Viennese, 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 (1910).
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. His exact fate remains unknown, but easy to imagine.
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