Artikel

Situering van Hilferdings boek "Das Finanzkapital" in de geschiedenis van het economisch denken van het begin dezer eeuw tot de grote depressie

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Abstract

The location of HILFERDING’s book “Das Finanzkapital” in the history of economic thinking from the beginning of this century till the great depression - The main work of Rudolf Hilferding “Das Finanzkapital” was published in 1910. The specialists of socialism agree about the importance of this book, but they remain silent about its eventual influence on the further development of economic thought. We therefore investigate in this article the reasons that made “Das Finanzkapital” so huge a success in socialist circles and its contribution to the development of economic science. The cause of success seems to be the doctrinal crisis in the German social-democratic-party at the beginning of this century. The criticism of Bernstein had undermined the belief of many leaders in the rightness and the efficiency for practical politics of Marxian economic theory. Hilferding succeeded in inserting the most important evident facts of the day in a husk of Marxist theory. By paying lip service to the Marxist creed he won over most of the doctrinaires; by pointing out possibilities of peaceful development to socialism he made his work acceptable for reformists. Further investigation of the contents of Hilferding’s book and a comparison with the works of other marxists reveal that only a few ideas of Hilferding can be considered as original. Much was borrowed from Tugan-Baranowsky’s studies on the theory and history of commercial crises in England (German version, 1901) and from Otto Bauer’s Die “Nationalitätenfrage und die Sofaldemokratie”. Hilferding’s price- and wage theory, however, in which he intelligently combines the macro-economic theory of Marx with the evident influences on prices and wages of power-factors, must be considered as an original synthesis. Original is also the way in which he explains the parallel growth of concentration in the industrial and financial sphere. Last but not least, his explanation of the policy followed by monopolies for defending their own markets and conquering new ones in colonies must also be praised as a good way for explaining modern imperialism. Investigation about the influence that Hilferding’s Finanzkapital exerted in academic circles, proves that it was about completely ignored by 275 bourgeois economists. In socialist circles his price and wage theories had some early success, but after the first world war most German socialist economists turned away from Marxist theory and so Hilferding’s price and wage theories were quickly forgotten. More important was his influence in the field of the theory of capitalist development. Lenin took over most of his theory concerning imperialism. Fritz Sternberg, whose book Imperialism was published in 1926 took a more critical view at Hilferding’s work and adopted only some of his ideas concerning the development of imperialism. As to Henryk Grossmann he considered Hilferding a neo-harmonist, who vainly tried to conceal the very factors, which must bring about the collapse of capitalism. With the breaking in of the great depression it seemed as if Grossmann was right. However, the collapse of the capitalist economy in Germany didn’t bring socialists but the Nazis to power. This meant the interruption of the development of German Marxist theory for about ten years. When after the publication of the work of Keynes, interest in Marxist economic theory was revived the work of Rudolf Hilferding was about forgotten. It had proved not to be a real standard work, but only a genial synthesis of Marxist thinking at a certain stage of German economic development.

How to Cite:

Vandewalle, G., (1967) “Situering van Hilferdings boek "Das Finanzkapital" in de geschiedenis van het economisch denken van het begin dezer eeuw tot de grote depressie”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 12(3), 275–316. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95777