Otto Bauer 1904–14

Chapter 4 is devoted to Otto Bauer’s work in economics until 1914, beginning with his first attempt to construct a model of economic crises and concluding with an assessment of his second crisis model, which was developed in the course of his critique of Rosa Luxemburg’s Accumulation of Capital. In between there are sections on his general approach to Marx’s political economy, set out in articles on Capital and Theories of Surplus Value; the small but significant economic component of his first and perhaps most influential book, The Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy; his criticisms of the crisis theories of Georg von Charasoff, Hilferding and Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky; and his analysis of the policy issues raised by the Austrian experience of inflation and unemployment in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War.