The basis of relations between political elites and non-elites in the prehispanic Andes was shaped by redistribution. In Andes during the later prehispanic period, redistributive mechanisms linked elites to non-elites through the redistribution of consumables like coca, and feasts of food and chichabeer in exchange for labor and political support. "The manipulation of redistributive economic relationships among the elite and their retainers, most notably of exotic goods and commodities, stands at the core of the development of Prehispanic Andean complex societies" (Stanish 2003: 68). Often these surplus goods were produced through efficient mechanisms orchestrated by elites, and the benefits and prestige derived from these surpluses would be accrued disproportionately by political leaders.

The central collection of goods for redistribution or use by the state includes taxation which, in the Inka period, was through mit'alabor. With respect to the exchange of lithic raw materials, Giesso (2003) argues that at Tiwanaku household stone tool production was a form of taxation. Giesso cites ethnohistoric evidence referencing the Inka period and argues that the household knapping of projectile points could have contributed to the provisioning of the state armory. The means by which non-local material arrived in the Tiwanaku homeland is unclear, but in the Inka case the raw material was acquired locally or it was provided by the state (Giesso 2003: 377). Earle (1977: 215) argues that redistributionshould be considered as two major groups with leveling mechanisms on one side and complex institutional mechanisms for wealth accumulation on the other (see Section 2.2.4).