The Oligarch, the Philosopher, and Hoarding in Plato

Taking as its starting point Marx’s analysis of the functions of money, especially his concept of hoarding, the following chapter addresses the relation of the money form to some aspects of platonic theory, focusing mainly, though not exclusively on the Republic. An attempt is made to show the significant role of hoarding for a number of issues raised in the platonic text. Specifically, I will focus on three issues: firstly, on Plato’s attitude toward the various functions of money in order to show that he ascribes hoarding to the realm of faulty constitutions; secondly, on the form of reduplication hoarding imprints on the constitution of oligarchy; lastly, based on this form of reduplication, on a comparison of the oligarchic practice of hoarding with the platonic conception of philosophy as a practice of death as it is expounded in Phaedo. My aim here is to give prominence to the common features of hoarding and Plato’s conception of philosophy, exploring the possibility of the abstractive process of the money form being a latent condition of platonic thought.