Robbertus, JOHANN KARL, designated the founder of scientific socialism, was born the son of a professor at Greifswald on 12th August 1805, and studied law at Göttingen and Berlin. For a few years he held law appointments under the Prussian government, but in 1836 settled down on his country estate at Jagetzow in Pomerania, and turned his attention chiefly to economic studies. In 1848 he was elected a member of the Prussian National Assembly, and for a fortnight filled the post of minister of Worship and Education; in the following year he carried the adoption of the Frankfort constitution for the empire, but retired from public life when the Prussian electors were grouped in three separate classes. He died on 6th December 1875. Although a socialist, Robbertus was not a demagogic agitator: he believed that the socialistic ideal will work itself out gradually according to the natural laws of change and progress. Indeed he fixed upon five centuries as the time it will take to educate the people, the democracy, up to the socialistic ideal. When that ideal is realised the state will be the owner of all the land and capital of a country, and will superintend the distribution of the total products of human labour amongst those who do the labour, apportioning to each a share corresponding to his work. (His fundamental economic principle was of course that labour is the true and only source of wealth.) In the meantime he would not interfere with the working of the established laws of capital and land, nor with the principles of monarchical government. On behalf of the workers he advocated that the government should fix a normal working-day, a normal day's work, and a maximum and minimum of wages. His views are laid down in Zur Kenntniss unserer staatswirthschaftlichen Zustände (1842), Soziale Briefe (1850-51 and 1884), Zur Erklärung der Kreditnot des Grundbesitzes (1868-69), 'Der Normalarbeitstag' and other papers in Tübinger Zeitschrift (1878 et seq.), and others in Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie.
His Briefe und Aufsätze were edited by R. Meyer (2 vols. 1882), and his Kleinere Schriften by M. Wirth (Berlin, 1890). See monographs by R. Adler (1884) and Dietzel (1886-88). See also SOCIALISM.