THE INCA WEALTH WITHOUT MONEY.

The Inca Empire is the only one advanced civilization in history to have no class of traders, and no commerce of any kind within its boundaries. In fact, they had no marketplaces at all, even though the empire was the largest one that South America had ever known.
Centered in Peru, the empire stretched across the Andes' Mountain tops and down to the shoreline, incorporating lands from today's Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Peru -all connected by a vast highway system whose complexity surpass any in the Old World. The region in which they flourished was characterized by extreme droughts known to be the cause of extinction of cultures that existed before them. Also climate fluctuations were a constant hazard.
The Incas were master builders and land planners, capable of extremely sophisticate agriculture in the high mountains. Some years ago a group of archaeologists took core samples in Cuzco Valley, Peru, and found evidence for thousands of years  of agriculture in the area, including animal husbandry, most likely llamas, alpacas and vicunas.
The Inca society was so rich that it could afford to have hundreds of people who specialized in planning the agricultural uses of newly-conquered areas. They focused their technological and cultural institutions around food and production and land management. They built terraced farms on the mountain sides whose crops -from potatoes and maize to peanuts and squash- were carefully chosen to thrive in the average temperatures for different altitudes. The development of major irrigated terracing technology was necessary in these regions to obviate conditions of seasonal water stress, thereby allowing a very efficient agricultural production at higher altitudes. They also farmed trees to keep the thin topsoil in good condition. The outcome of these strategies was greater long-term food security and the ability to feed large populations. Food was their coin; pure labor structured their economy. All the laborers and the rest of the people in the empire were well fed, and did not spend a dime.
The Inca architects were equally talented, designing and raising enormous pyramids, and irrigating with sophisticated waterworks such as those found at Tipon, and creating enormous Temples like Pachacamac along with mountain retreats like Machu Picchu.
And yet, despite all their productivity, the Incas managed without money or marketplaces. They did not promote any type of trading class inside Inca society, and the development of individual wealth was not possible since the Mind was dominated by the spirit of their Creator God Viracocha. He was the owner of everything and the controller of all the universal forces acting in each level of existence.
When the Incas noticed a lack of any essential product that was not produced locally, they developed several strategies, such as establishing colonies in specific production zones for particular commodities and permitting long-distance trade. The production, distribution, and use of commodities were centrally controlled by the Inca government. So the Inca did engage in exchanging or bartering trade, but only with outsiders -not among themselves.
Each citizen of the empire was issued the necessities of life out of the state storehouses, including food, tools, raw materials, and clothing, and needed to purchase nothing. With no shops or markets, there was no need for a standard currency or money, and there was nowhere to spend money or purchase for necessities. Instead of paying taxes in money, every citizen was required to provide labor to the state. In exchange for this labor, they were given the necessities of life.
Nobles and their courts were trained to fulfill other religious purposes involving higher degree of power required to maintain the harmony between the different levels of existence. They owned and governed specific properties with specific locations and their families or estate managers were trained to continue in it in order to maintain its power crucial to the stability of the Inca and the empire. Indeed the Temple at Pachacamac was basically a well-managed estate that belonged to a dead Inca noble.
The outstanding example that the Incas show to the World is the fact that money is not a necessary factor to develop a successful, sophisticated, and extremely wealthy empire. Its major goal was to prevent starvation rather than to foster trade.