The Inca Empire (c. 1438–1533) was the largest state in the pre-Columbian Americas — and it functioned without money, markets, or writing. Its road network, labor-redistribution system, and quipu record-keeping show a different answer to the problem of organizing a large territorial state, and understanding that answer reframes what political and economic coordination actually requires.
The Inca built 40,000 kilometers of road, administered millions of people across the Andes, and stored enough food to feed their empire through multi-year famines. They did it without money, without markets, and without writing. The answer is that they ran their empire on obligation rather than exchange: labor owed to the state, vast storehouses that redistributed it, and knotted cords that kept the accounts.