Johann Karl Rodbertus

He travelled extensively in the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland before returning to settle down on his newly purchased estate (Jagetzow).

Elected to the National Assembly in 1848, he was Minister of Education in the Auerswald-Hansemann ministry for a fortnight, and in 1849 was a leader of the centre-left.

After the defeat of the 1848 Revolution, Rodbertus did not participate in politics and the last twenty years of his life were spent in retirement.

[5] Socialism, as defined by Rodbertus, was to be a gradual evolution, hence his acquiescence in a monarchy, and his break with the Democrats as a political party.

His principal doctrines are these: The workman's share of the nation's industrial income tends constantly to decline; land rent and interest are the result of the exploitation of the working classes; the present shares in the distribution of wealth (rent, profits, interest, and wages) are not entirely the result of permanent, universal economic forces, but the result of historical evolution and the prevailing legal system; financial and commercial crises are due to a non-adjustment of production and consumption; the laborer's purchasing power is small and the capitalist and landlord classes, instead of increasing their consumption of luxuries, invest their savings in new factories, and in otherwise increasing the means of production, with the inevitable result that commodities of common consumption are produced in excess.

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk thought that Rodbertus' exposition of the exploitation theory was superior to that of Karl Marx in profundity and coherence.