section_path: Economy
section_name: Economy
paragraph_text: Economy
  
  The Inca Empire employed central planning. Coastal chiefdoms within the Inca Empire punctually traded with outside regions, although they did not operate a substantial internal market economy. While axe-monies were used along the northern coast, where the custom of reciprocity was not in place, presumably by the provincial mindaláe trading class, most households in the empire lived in a traditional economy in which households were required to pay tributes, usually in the form of the mit'a corvée labor, and military obligations, though barter (or trueque) was present in some areas. In return, the state provided security, food in times of hardship through the supply of emergency resources, agricultural projects (e.g. aqueducts and terraces) to increase productivity, and occasional feasts hosted by Inca officials for their subjects. While mit'a was used by the state to obtain labor, individual villages had a pre-inca system of communal work, known as mink'a. This system survives to the modern day, known as mink'a or faena. The economy rested on the material foundations of the vertical archipelago, a system of ecological complementarity in accessing resources and the cultural foundation of ayni, or reciprocal exchange.