9. The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand

9 The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand We now come to the essential problem that every socialist system must solve: How replace the mechanism of the pricing process and achieve by way of authority an equilibrium between supply and demand? The retrenchment of needs and the regula tion of production make it possible to simplify all computations and to proceed to calculate approximately the total demand and the total supply at a given moment and as anticipated throughout the year. Such calculations require statistical data. In the light of the figures obtained, the government will take the necessary measures to procure the quantity of products sufficient to meet those needs which are deemed to be the irreducible minimum and will have these products delivered to the places 'where they are to be con sumed. To keep its forecasts exact, it will forbid any change of residence on the part of anyone save in exceptional cases which it will be obliged to take into account. But as it is not infallible, and as chance may upset its calculations, it will create reserve stocks as a means of correcting any unanticipated imbalance. The transmis sion of the information it receives and the orders it sends out will require a network of communications and the establishment of a corps of messengers. In addition, since personal interest is to a 122 The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 123 great extent eliminated, severe penalties will be needed to take its place.

This rigid system, however, will of necessity allow for a certain amount of free play because of the retention of elements of earlier date that the monarchs do not believe it useful to suppress by force and becauseof the substructure,which still leavessome room for personal interest. Thus, a certain amount of trade will continue to be carried on at the periphery of the socialist regime. Such were the factors in the Incas' solution of the basic prob lem, and such are the different aspects of their economy that we must successively examine. 1. Statistics It is ridiculous for a man who knows nothing of the art of counting by means of knots to presume to reckon up the number of the stars. -A maxim of the Inca Pachacutec1 The slightest insufficiency, the smallest error, in the statistics of a planned empire runs the risk of entailing a catastrophic glut or famine. Fortunately, the Incas attained a rare degree of perfec tion in this field.

The decimal system of numeration was in use in the Inca em pire, which is remarkable when we recall that a vigesimal system was the rule among the Chibchas, as it was among the Mayas to the north. Statistics were compiled by means of a knotted cord called the quipu, of which an intensive use was made. Everything 'was counted, even to the wild animals captured in the hunts and the slingstones deposited in the public storehouses. 2 Before we examine in greater detail the manner in which the statistical tables were drawn up and preserved, a very puzzling preliminary question must first be raised: Did any system of writ ing exist in those days? Montesinos maintains that the ancient Peruvians used to write on banana leaves3 or on the foliage of trees4 and that the practice of this art had been forbidden by a sovereign at a period antedating that of the Incas. According to this chronicler, an amauta who had invented characters for 'writ124 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru ing was burned alive. Modern historians are in disagreement on this question. R. Porras Barranechea, considering the hieroglyphic inscriptions found on stones, the use of paintings in the temples to record historic events, and especially the existence, before the conquest, of a word in Quechua and Aymara that was equivalent to the word "writing" (quilca), concludes that a form of picture writing did once exist in Peru. 5 Finally, there is still some mystery in regard to the real nature of a certain rod of 'which Balboa speaks and on which Huayna Capac is said to have drawn stripes in different colors to mark his last wishes before his death. 6 The quipu was not peculiar to the Peruvians. The Colombians of Popayan, the Caribs of the Orinoco, the Mexicans before they used the codex, certain North American tribes, the Chinese, and the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands were all acquainted with it. On the other hand, some peoples quite close by, such as the Caras, were unfamiliar with it.7 The Caras brought together pieces of wood, in which they had cut notches, and in these notches they would set little stones of different shapes and colors according to the ideas they wished to express.'s The Caiiaris of Ecuador, who were not subdued by the Incas until rather late, also made use of little stones which they placed in the compartments of a special apparatus. Wiener, who found a stone object of this type, calls it a computer. 9 It consists of a rectangular slab of stone, into the upper surface of which are cut a number of square and rectangular compartments so as to leave a free octagonal space in the center. A prismatic projection, itself surmounted by a secondary projection, extends upward from each end. 10 According to Wiener, the accounts were kept by means of kernels of maize, beans, or pebbles. A pebble placed in a small compart ment would denote one unit. Its value would be doubled if it were put into a larger space and tripled in the central compartment. It would be multiplied by six if placed on the first of the upper levels and by twelve when put on one of the topmost platforms. The color of the pebble indicated the nature of the object that was being counted. ll In spite of what Suarez says,12 it is certain that the quipu 'with its cords and knots is immeasurably superior to the system of the The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 125 b Diagram of a Computer little stones. The pebbles arranged in the computer to denote some numerical result had to be moved if anyone wanted to make use of the computer for a new calculation. The apparatus was too valuable to permit the possession of a large number of them. The quipu, on the contrary, was simple to set up, and it could then be preserved as a record and used to form whole sets of figures. The computer was, properly speaking, an instrument for making cal culations, 'whereas the quipu was ideally suited for dealing with statistics. The one facilitated mathematical operations; the other registered the results.

Thus, the quipu was. neither a system of calculating nor a mode of writing; it was a numerical record and served a purely mnemonic function.l 3 It consisted of a thick cord from which a number of strings were suspended in the manner of a fringe. These strings were of different colors, according to the nature of the object each represented: for example, yellow stood for gold, red for the army, white for peace. The colors, being limited in number, had different meanings depending upon the general purpose and scope of the quipu. Objects not distinguishable by color or liable to confusion were ranked according to their quality. Thus, for a statistical table 126 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru of weapons, the first string would denote the number of lances, these being considered the noblest of all arms; then would come the arrows, bows, javelins, clubs, axes, and slings. Often the pen dent cords would themselves have smaller strings attached to them to represent subdivisions. Attached to a cord that recorded demo graphic statistics, for example, these subsidiary strings 'would refer to the year's widows or widowers.

Knots of various types and positions were tied in the cords to mark units, by tens or multiples of ten, according to where they were placed. The lower end of the cord would correspond to unity; the upper end, to ten thousand units. Every interval between the tens, the hundreds, and the thousands had to be long enough to provide room for nine simple intermediary knots or for a single large knot formed by passing the string two, three, four, or up to nine times through the loop of the simple knot. 14 Sometimes the principal cord would have knots at its two ends to indicate the total from the small strings; in other cases an extra thread would mark the sum reached on the others, forming, as Mead says, "a sort of double entry bookkeeping." 15 An example (which we have simplified) is provided by A. de la Calancha. 16 Let us suppose that an official wished to express the fact, 1320 . Totalizer cord 1562 27 201 Diagram of a Quipu The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 127 first, that before Manco Capac, the first Inca, there was neither king nor chief nor any form of worship or religion; and then that in the fourth year of his reign this emperor subdued ten provinces, the con quest of which cost him a certain number of men and in one of which he seized a thousand units of gold and three thousand units of silver; and finally that in thanksgiving for his victory he had a feast cele brated in honor of the Sun-god.

The quipucamayu (i.e., the keeper of the quipus) would take a blacl( cord-the color that denoted time. From it he would suspend a large number of uncolored strings, and in it make a quantity of little knots, Then, when he reached the center of the cord, he would make a thick knot and run it though with a crimson thread, the color denoting the Inca. The reader, seeing the quipu divided into two halves, the first strung with uncolored threads and dotted with a mass of knots, would say to himself: Before the first sovereign (scarlet thread), for a very long period (many threads and knots), the people had no king, since none of the threads is scarlet; no chief, since none is deep purple; no religion, since none is blue; and no administrative departments, since there are no variegated threads; and he would conclude that there was nothing at all. In the scarlet thread the quipucamayu would make four small knots to explain that the events he was recounting took place in the fourth year of the monarch's reign; and to the central knot he would attach a gray thread on which would be ranged ten small knots, indicating the conquered provinces. To each of these he would fasten a green thread, indicating, always by means of knots, the number of the enemy killed, and would add little strings of diverse colors to denote their native provinces, for every province was represented by a mixture of different shades. In the same way, he would attach a red thread-the color of the imperial army-to make known the number of warriors who had been· slain and the provinces from which they came.

To indicate the nature and amount of the booty taken, the quipuca mayu would suspend, from the knot of the province in question, a yellow thread, signifying gold, with a knot to indicate one thousand, and a white thread, for silver, with three of these knots. Finally, he would add a small twist of blue, white, and yellow to designate the god who lived in the sky (blue) and created silver (white) and gold (yellow) and to let it be understood that a celebration had been held in his honor. All told, the quipu was a very difficult rebus! 17 128 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru The use the Indians made of these quipus astonished the chron iclers, even those who were the most hostile to the natives and the most ready to disparage them. 18 But modern authors, comparing the quipu to systems in use among other peoples, are less enthu siastic than their predecessors. 19 In spite of the fact that the first Council of Lima in 1583 ordered the quipus to be burned because of the magic formulas and pre scriptions they contained, many have been preserved and are on exhibition in our museums today.2()But most of these, as they were found in tombs, were probably calendrical in nature and used in divination, for it is doubtful that administrative documents would have been buried with the dead.

To this day the shepherds in the Peruvian puna keep track of their flocks with the aid of strings, the first representing the bulls, the second the milch cows, the third the barren cows, the fourth the calves; and then the wool-bearing animals, the number of foxes killed, expenditures for salt, and so on.21 In the region of Casta, when the canals are being repaired, the officials in charge make use of small wooden boards on which the names of the workers are inscribed. Beside every name there is a hole with colored threads strung through it, which indicate the quantity and the quality of the work performed, the number of implements used, and even the zeal displayed by each worker. 22 The statistical reports in preColumbian Peru enabled the Inca and the higher officials to know exactly what the economic condi tion of the empire was and to act accordingly. The mass of the population, to be sure, had less interest than the upper class in keeping these records, since their subsistence minimum-a tupu and a pair 6f llamas-was assured in any case. Yet even this mini mum could disappear in the wake of some chance occurrence such as an abnormal drought or an invasion, in which case the govern ment would come to their aid, as we shall later see.

Of all the statistics the most important were undoubtedly the census figures. For this purpose the Indians were divided into ten age groups: those over sixty, who did no work and were sometimes called upon to give advice to the local chiefs; those between fifty The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 129 and sixty, who were assigned to light work, such as planting vege tables; those between twenty-five and fifty, the hatunruna) who were subject to compulsory labor service; those between twenty and twenty-five (those under twenty-five helped their parents), and then into groups from sixteen to twenty, eight to sixteen, six to eight four to six, two to four, and infants under two. This register was kept up to date each year. 23 The governmental service of statistics was in the hands of three different categories of officials: the ordinary administrative author ities collected the data, special accountants set up the tables, and others were charged with their preservation. At the base of the hierarchy the chiefs of ten households reported the number of births and deaths each year 24 and kept the complete record of their group. This information was passed on to the chiefs of fifty fam ilies, then to those of a hundred households, and so on up to the tucricuc. Accountants at these upper levels of the hierarchy would integrate the data supplied by subordinate officials and set up general quipus for each of the large administrative units. The tucricucs would take these statistical summaries to Cuzco when they went to make their annual report to the Inca and to celebrate the great festival of the Raymi. 25 Finally, in the capital, the keepers of the quipus 'would collect the statistical tables of the entire em pire and would make a point of preserving in their own memories what was only imperfectly indicated by the little cords. Each of these last-named record-keepers had his specialty. One took care of the war quipus, another of the statistics on festivals, a third was responsible for records of population figures, and so on. They were very highly esteemed, paid no taxes of any kind, and lived at the Inca's expense. This was the Bureau of General Statistics and, at the same time, the National Archives.