Austro-Marxism

Rudolf Hilferding and the Austro-Marxists have a complex intellectual history and have been alternatively announced as champions and heirs of Marxism, bankrupt bastions of the bourgeoisie, or as incompetent politicians whose failures allowed for Germany to collapse into Nazism. Who was Hilferding, how was his thought shaped, and how was the shaping of his though impact for the genesis of neoliberalism?

Rudolf Hilferding was born to a Polish Jewish bourgeois family in late 19th century Vienna and joined the social democratic movement in his youth. While at the University of Vienna he studied under the Austrian school economists Wieser, Phillippovich, and Bohm-Bawerk as well as Marxist socialist Grunberg and philosopher of science Mach. His contemporaries at the school were the luminaries Mises, Weber, Bauer, and Schumpeter. Hilferding's first major work was a refutation of Bohm-Bawerk's criticism of Marx, which gained him the attention of prominent German Marxist Kautsky who became his mentor.

His refutation of Bohm-Bawerk was not successful, but rather became an anticritique which produced a Marxism more compatible with marginalist economics and away from the labor theory of value. Hilferding also absorbed theories of Tugan-Baranovsky and challenged orthodox theories of money and capitalist crises, incorporating insights from the Austrian school.

His political affiliations with Otto Bauer, Max Adler, and Marburg socialist absorbed him in the political movement to move Marx away from Hegel, dialectics; and revolutionary praxis, to Neo-Kantianism and a model of evolutionary social democratic politics. Hilferding's masterwork, "Finance Capital", synthesized his economic, political, and social thought: the state was now not a direct result of economic processes that reflected ownership of private property, but rather was a neutral mechanism to be won through parliamentary politics. At the same time, financial capital, stocks, and modern banking allowed for increasingly large and stable cartels to form, which would eventually result in the entire economy being brought under one corporate organization, which would in turn colonize the state.

Hilferding concluded that parliamentary practice through consolidation of the working class and labor movements into political parties would eventually take over the state, which would then combine with the cartels and allow a smooth transition to a centrally planned socialist economy. This moderate political practice and understanding of Austrian and neoclassical financial policies would foreshadow an alliance of liberal and social democratic parties against fascism and communism in the decades to come.

Ludwig von Mises was one of the most powerful advocates of the free market in the 20th century as well as the leader of an entire generation of the Austrian school of economics. One of the attendees of the Walter Lippmann Colloquium, he had a direct role in the birth of neoliberalism, but his intellectual journey to become a champion of liberal principles was not an easy one. Growing up in the twilight years of the Hapsburg Empire, he too was thrown into the complicated ideological mix of early 20th century Vienna.

Turn of the century Vienna was increasingly paralyzed over the "inevitable" decline of the Empire as neo-Kantianism and Josephinist bureaucracy combined in reactionary movements that opposed labor and the working classes as well as liberal thinkers. The pan-German nationalism and the rise of Prussia also applied pressure on the collapsing empire that would lead to the First World War and the ultimate shattering of both Austro-Marxism and international workers movements and social democracy out of nationalism and later reactionary fervor.

In this complex philosophical mix, Mises turned away from historical materialism and "non-Marxist socialism" of the historical school toward neo-Kantian apriorism, rationalism, and value free science. Mises steered Austrian economics away from Wieser and Schumpeter's interests in neoclassical economics and socialist leanings toward Anglo-American style liberalism. 

At this time the Austro-Marxists employed a concept of the state as that which was above class interests, and instead focused on pragmatic politics of strengthening labor movement unity and transforming it into parliamentary representation. Hilferding and the other Austro-Marxists became politicians first, theoreticians second, and tried to balance political tools such as general strikes and party schools to educate labor organizers with trying to build moderate coalitions with other parties.

Hilferding and the Austro-Marxists split with the revolutionary bolshevists and feared that a revolution would actually be a set back for the gradual evolution of capitalism into socialism. It was their commitment to pragmatic politics that allowed the Austro-Marxists to ally with Mises and other liberals. Mises at the time was very influential as a finance minister within the government and had great influence among Viennese cultural and intellectual elites.

At this time Mises was also involved with Neurath, Polanyi, and others in the socialist calculation debate, wherein his insistence on private property and the market as the only true determiners of economic prices demonstrated the impossibility of a fully planned economy. Simultaneously, this revealed cracks within neoclassical economics and fully differentiated the Austrian school away from other marginal schools, albeit one that had direct, free market and liberal political implications. However, economic collapse, nationalism, and the rise of totalitarianism, along with his own recognition of the heterogeneity of the democratic socialism movement forced Mises into a more political active role than he would have liked, one that, if only begrudginly, worked with moderate socialists and Austro-Marxists.

Over more than four decades, the Austrian economist, sociologist, and philosopher, Otto Neurath made unique contributions to the fields of museology and curation, which culminated in the founding of the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna and its mobile exhibitions in the 1920s. But until today, Neurath’s involvement in the organization of portable “field exhibitions,” which predated those at the Social and Economic Museum by at least half a decade remains understudied. In this essay, I argue that field exhibitions, which were informed by Neurath’s theories on war economy, are instructive in analyzing his overall curatorial ideas. Staged on the outskirts of the city in collaboration with allotment garden and settlement cooperatives, these exhibitions utilized plans and diagrams to convey social and political statements of facts through pictorial statistics and everyday objects. By pairing abstract graphic information with commonplace objects, they invited inhabitants into a conversation about the material world as well as the future by drawing on personal experience. As such, these field exhibitions created a communal environment for viewing and debating information and championed what I call “a collaborative practice of seeing.”

Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of the entrepreneur is the most well-known approach to be developed in continental Europe at the turn of the century, and has exercised considerable influence on the literature. However, this paper shows that alternative theories of the entrepreneur were developed by scholars close in time and space to Schumpeter’s The Theory of Economic Development. First, the contribution of Rudolf Hilferding is unknown in the literature on entrepreneurship and is important due to the absence of entrepreneurial theory in the Marxist literature upon which Hilferding built. Second, while the later contributions of Ludwig von Mises to entrepreneurial theory have been discussed, the early comments of his 1912 treatise are often passed over, and are a significant foil to Schumpeter’s views. Discussing the early writing of Mises on entrepreneurship also helps show the ambitious scope of Mises’ first book, and furthermore, allows us to properly position his writings in the history of economic thought.

This is a translation (with commentary) of the full debate between the legal theorist Hans Kelsen and the Austro-Marxist intellectual and politician Otto Bauer published in the theoretical journal of the SDAP (Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party), Der Kampf, in 1924.
DOI: 10.1177/0725513620985651

En esta obra analizaremos las posiciones teóricas y políticas de Otto Bauer
(intelectual austríaco, miembro del Partido Social Demócrata de Austria y de la escuela
llamada Austro-marxista) sobre la teoría de las crisis y la cuestión del imperialismo en el marco
la Segunda Internacional. En primer lugar analizaremos su formulación de la teoría marxista de las
crisis en forma de una teoría del ciclo industrial. En segundo lugar analizaremos su formulación de
una teoría del imperialismo durante su intervención en el debate sobre las nacionalidades en la
Social Democracia austríaca, así como su recepción de las obras canónicas de Hilferding y Luxemburg
sobre el tema. Finalmente, consideraremos su intervención política en torno al Estado austríaco, su
política exterior y los conflictos nacionales que se desarrollaron en su seno (y su impacto en su
partido). Todo el análisis será sustentado a través del examen de fuentes primarias. Nuestra
hipótesis es que existió una relación orgánica entre los tres aspectos analizados: una posición
donde las crisis eran un fenómeno únicamente cíclico favoreció una concepción del imperialismo como
una política particular que no era intrínsecamente necesaria para el desarrollo del capitalismo. En
el terreno político esto condujo a una postura que preconizaba el mantenimiento del statu quo de la
configuración estatal austríaca, que fue modificada sólo gradual y tardíamente debido al impacto de
los conflictos nacionales y la evolución del imperialismo austríaco y europeo en general. En la
conclusión juzgamos en
detalle esta idea recapitulando los distintos temas de nuestro trabajo.

El presente trabajo aborda la política y la teoría nacional desarrollada por la Socialdemocracia austríaca. Analiza los debates en torno al programa nacional del Partido Socialdemócrata Pan-austríaco
y los distintas disputas teórico-políticas que se dieron al interior del mismo sobre esta cuestión, así como sus repercusiones internacionales entre teóricos importantes de la Socialdemocracia alemana, los bolcheviques y grupos socialistas de los Balcanes. A su vez, enmarca estas discusiones en la situación política de la cual emergieron,  caracterizada por distintos conflictos nacionales en Austria ante los cuales la Socialdemocracia debía posicionarse. Como elementos fundamentales de este marco político, analizaremos también la evolución del modelo partidario austríaco (de organizaciones separadas por nacionalidad), los conflictos nacionales en el seno de la Socialdemocracia y las distintas posturas Socialdemócratas
sobre el Estado austríaco imperial, sus posibilidades de reforma, y las perspectivas para la solución de la situación nacional de los distintos pueblos de Austria. Concluimos con una evaluación crítica de esta
trayectoria y una reflexión en torno a cómo el programa teórico-político nacional dominante en la Socialdemocracia austríaca (en sus distintas variantes, incluyendo la escuela Austro-marxista) se acomodó en última instancia a las características del Estado austríaco y sus limitaciones históricas.



The present work deals with the politics and the national theory developed in Austrian Social Democracy. It analyzes the debates on the national program of the Pan-Austrian Social Democratic Party and the different theoretical and political disputes that took place within it on this issue, as well as their international repercussions on important theorists of German Social Democracy, the Bolsheviks and socialist groups of the Balkans. In turn, it frames these discussions in the political situation from which they emerged, characterized by different national conflicts in Austria on which Social Democracy had to take a position. As fundamental elements of this political framework, we will also analyze the evolution of the Austrian party model (of organizations separated by nationality), the national conflicts within Social Democracy and the different Social Democratic positions on the Austrian
imperial state, its possibilities for reform, and the prospects for the solution of the national situation of the different peoples of Austria. We conclude with a critical evaluation of this trajectory and a reflection on how the dominant national theoretical-political program in the Austrian Social Democracy (in its different variants, including the Austro-Marxist School) was ultimately accommodated to the characteristics of the Austrian State and its historical limitations.

This paper examines the intellectual heritage of the debate between the Currency and Banking Schools of 19th-century England in regard to three Viennese economists: Rudolf Hilferding, Ludwig von Mises, and Joseph Schumpeter. It first provides a brief summary of the debate between the Currency and Banking Schools. It then explores the influence of the Currency-Banking dispute on the early monetary theories of Hilferding, Mises, and Schumpeter, showing that Hilferding is essentially an orthodox Banking School theorist, Mises is a successor to the Currency School, and Schumpeter lies between the two traditions.

The paper draws on possibilities of applying Rancière’s views to the poetics and politics of “Red Vienna,” that is, to the cultural and educational policies developed by Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria (SDAP), which in the 1920s supported aesthetic policies structurally related to Rancière’s own conceptions of art and aesthetic revolution. The aim of the paper is to discuss Rancière’s understanding of aesthetic revolution in the light of the historical achievements and impasses of the Viennese social democratic politics.

Connecting the rise of fascism in the nineteen-thirties to the collapse of liberal democracy today is a popular sport. It’s rare, however, to find an analysis that places responsibility as clearly on the side of liberalism itself as Käthe Leichter’s 1933 article „Die beste Abwehr“ [The Best Defense]. Leichter’s arguments are troubling, not simply for their applicability today but for her insights on the ways that fascism can erupt from within the institutions of a purportedly democratic society. Translated from the German with a commentary. Appended:  Siegfried Aufhäuser, “Parisian Aftershocks. Why an Educational Dictatorship?” [„Pariser Nachklänge. Warum Erziehungsdiktatur“], 1933.

The paper describes the initial stage of the Soviet historiography dedicated to the latest period of the Austria-Hungary, traced its gradual but consistent ideologization and politicization. Special attention is paid to works by V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin, L.D. Trotsky, K.B. Radek and other leaders of the Bolsheviks, who examined this issue through the prism of their theory on the national question, which was developed and formed in the years of the World War I. As far as the views of the irreconcilable opponents - M.N. Pokrovsky and E.V. Tarle - are concerned, both have been allowed themselves then a departure from the canonical doctrines by Lenin and Stalin - with the different degree of scientific accuracy. Special attention is paid to the Czech and Polish aspects of the problem. The authors conclude that in the early USSR the study of Austria-Hungary as a factor in European history was substituted for the fragments of its individual Nations’ histories.

This paper is presented at Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe and Austro-Marxism - 29-30 May 2021

This paper argues that neoliberalism, which has traditionally been taken as a Western phenomenon, do have Eastern origins, moreover Eastern Europe played a crucial role how the neoliberalism maintained the globalized capitalism. I put an emphasize on the fact that Eastern Europe has constantly been some kind of birthplace of and experimental laboratory for neoliberal capitalism. This paper examines on the one hand the impact of Vienna intellectuals on the Hungarian neoliberal tradition unfolding after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; on the other hand the ideological and political cooperation of Austro-Marxism and Hungarian Social Democracy in exile during the interwar period of Wien. This paper aims to investigate the interwar and post-war neoliberalism and left-wing alternatives and will conclude that Fascism and neoliberalism simultaneously tried to destroy social democracy.

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