[1] After completing a four-year commercial apprenticeship (kaufmännische Lehre), David studied at the university at Giessen where he was introduced to socialist ideals.

[1] In the 1890s, David became a proponent of agricultural policies favouring small holdings, arguing for their viability in a series of articles in the Sozialdemokrat in August and September 1894.

[1] This journalism on the agrarian question would later be expanded into his major book-length work, Sozialismus und Landwirtschaft (Socialism and Agriculture), in 1903.

[1] In October 1918, when the SPD became part of the Imperial government for the first time under the new chancellor Max von Baden, David became Under Secretary at the Foreign Office.

David is today considered a key figure in the history of the political labour movement in Germany as he influenced the development of the SPD in the pre-World War I period as one of the leading advocates of reformist policies.