Keywords
Heuristics
Hierarchical
Cooperation
Knowledge
How to Cite
Abstract
The Inca Empire developed a sophisticated food production system, social organisation, and knowledge transmission without relying on currency or writing. In this article, which examines the Inca model through a heuristic and practical lens, we introduce the concept of a barter economy based on hierarchical cooperation. Drawing on ethnohistorical accounts and modern scholarship, we explore how the Incas produced abundant food across diverse ecological zones, mobilised labour through kin-based and state institutions, and transmitted knowledge via embodied practice and quipu record-keeping. We argue that the Inca case represents a distinctive mode of complex organisation that challenges modern assumptions about money, markets, and written bureaucracy as prerequisites for large-scale administration. This heuristic-practical paradigm of Inca statecraft highlights the interplay of food security, social cohesion, and knowledge in empire-building. This study concludes by discussing the implications of the Inca model for understanding pre-modern economies and draws parallels to broader non-market systems in history.
References
1. Antúnez de Mayolo Rynning, S. (2011). Nutrición en el Antiguo Perú (6th ed.). Sociedad Geográfica del Perú, Lima.
2. Arellano Hoffmann, C. (2013). Los quipus de Cahacay de 1636. Repensando el uso de quipus y las etnocategorías incas para la Colonia. Revista Histórica, Instituto Histórico del Perú, tomo XLVI, pp. 103–154.
3. Baudin, L. (1961). A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru. D. Van Nostrand Company, Princeton, NJ.
4. Belloc, M., & Bowles, S. (2017). Persistence and Change in Culture and Institutions under Autarchy, Trade and Factor Mobility. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 9(4), 245–276.
5. Burns, K. (2011). Making Indigenous Archives: The Quilcaycamayoc of Colonial Cuzco. Hispanic American Historical Review, 91(4), 665–689.
6. Castro, J., Vallejo, L. E., & Estrada, N. (2019). Case Study: The optimal design of the retaining walls built by the Incas in their agricultural terraces. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 36, 232–237.
7. D’Altroy, T. N. (2018). Inca Political Organization, Economic Institutions, and Infrastructure. In S. Alconini and R. A. Covey (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Incas (Chapter 3.1, pp. 205–226). Oxford University Press.
8. Erickson, C. L. (1993). The social organisation of pre-Hispanic raised field agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin. In W. H. Isbell & H. Silverman (Eds.), Andean Archaeology (pp. 369–426). Springer.
9. Guzmán Barrón, A. (1955). La nutrición en el antiguo Perú. Anales de la Facultad de Medicina de San Fernando, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 43–47.
10. Hu, D., and Quave, K. E. (2020). Property and prestige: Archaeological realities of unfree laborers under Inka imperialism. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 59, 101201.
11. Livi-Bacci, M. (2006). Depopulation of Hispanic America after the Conquest. Population and Development Review, 32(2), 199–232.
12. Munck, R. (2915). Karl Polanyi for Latin America: markets, society and development. Canadian Journal of Development Studies. Volume 36, Issue 4, pages 425 – 441.
13. Murra, J. V. (2014). El mundo andino. Población, medio ambiente y economía. IEP / Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima.
14. Rostworowski, M. (2005). Redes económicas del Estado Inca: el “ruego” y la “dádiva”. In El Estado está de vuelta: desigualdad, diversidad y democracia (pp. 15–47). Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima.
15. Roth, A. E. (2018). Marketplaces, Markets, and Market Design. American Economic Review, 108(7), 1609–1658.
16. Sieczkowska, D., Ćmielewski, B., Wolski, K., Pawel, B. D., Bastante, J. M., & Wilczyńska, I. (2022). Inca water channel flow analysis based on 3D models from terrestrial and UAV laser scanning at the Chachabamba archaeological site (Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park, Peru). Journal of Archaeological Science, 137, 105515.
17. Stanish, C., & Coben, L. S. (2013). Barter markets in the Pre-Hispanic Andes. In K. Hirth & J. Pillsbury (Eds.), Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World (pp. 419–434). Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C.
18. Ramírez, Susan E. (2005). To Feed and Be Fed: The Cosmological Bases of Authority and Identity in the Andes. Stanford University Press.
19. Turner, B. L., & Klaus, H. D. (Eds.). (2020). Theorizing Food and Power in Ancient Andes. In Diet, Nutrition, and Foodways of the North Coast of Peru (pp. 11–28). Springer (Bioarchaeology and Social Theory Series).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2025 South India Journal of Social Sciences