It had a palace economy, which was not unusual. The isolated communities devoted to "trade" with other nations were also fairly common. They're called emporiums or ports of trade. The "trading class" that the author believes to be commonplace among high cultures is more unusual than he thinks. The members of this class were also usually looked upon with suspicion by the rest of society. Anthropologists and historians have been telling us for generations that markets did not come to dominate our economic activities until late in the Middle Ages. It's nice to see some of this information make it out into the mainstream.
This sounds like Communism to me, no?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
Instead of paying taxes in money, every Incan was required to provide labor to the state. In exchange for this labor, they were given the necessities of life.