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A country has to possess gold in the vaults of its banks to back up its currency, but in the Inca state money was not used and gold held only aesthetic value and served to adorn the temples, lords and gods.
The question commands our attention: What then was the patrimony which allowed Tahuantinsuyo to meet its needs, to dominate and control economic and political aspects? For us, there were three sources of revenue in the Inca state, to have an available labor force and to possess state lands and livestock. The result of these three tenures was shown by goods in accumulated in warehouses. These goods in the power of the State were the most valuable wealth since they signified that a series of advantages were available, the main one being the control of reciprocity, the key to the whole Andean system, which allowed them to maintain the gears of the regime. Without possessing great quantities of accumulated goods the State could not have met administrative needs or the constant "donations" demanded by reciprocity. All the chronicles point out the Spanish astonishment at the immense quantity of warehouses crowded with goods available all over the territory. The labor force The enormous interest of the Inca state in having access to the work force is expressed in their populational computations preserved on the quipus and in the division of their inhabitants in the incipient decimal system of ten, hundred and thousand. It is incredible the way in which the State, despite not possessing writing was able to reap the benefits of statistics and bookkeepers in the persons of quipucamayos. Murra postulated that the so-called "tribute" according to the Spanish conception, did not exist in the Inca state. The common man had a parcel of land and all its income belonged to him without his having to give up any of it. In the Andean sphere the equivalent of tribute was the work force or labor which a man provided in the mita or in turn, whether it is for his ayllu, the local curaca, the lord of the macroethniciy or the huacas or the State. It is a matter of the indigenous concept of the minka, the system of work in fulfillment of an obligation by substitution based on an agreement. State lands The possession of land was one of the most esteemed forms of wealth in the Andean sphere. The chroniclers indicate that lands were divided into lands of the Inca, of the Sun and of the hatun runa or common people. In reality it was a more complex situation. The second source of power in the Inca state was the State lands, also called the Inca's lands. These lands, scattered all over Tahuantinsuyo, were cultivated by local people according to their turns or mita. The dimensions of the lands varied according to the size and population of the ayllus. With the development of the Inca state, their needs increased and there was greater demand for agricultural production and therefore for more lands.
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