Autarky

Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency; the term usually applies to political states or to their economic systems. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance or international trade. If a self-sufficient economy also refuses all trade with the outside world then economists may term it a closed economy. The term 'closed economy' is also used technically as an abstraction to allow consideration of a single economy without taking foreign trade into account – i.e. as the antonym of 'open economy'. Autarky in the political sense is not necessarily an economic phenomenon; for example, a military autarky would be a state that could defend itself without help from another country, or could manufacture all of its weapons without any imports from the outside world. Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency; the term usually applies to political states or to their economic systems. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance or international trade. If a self-sufficient economy also refuses all trade with the outside world then economists may term it a closed economy. The term 'closed economy' is also used technically as an abstraction to allow consideration of a single economy without taking foreign trade into account – i.e. as the antonym of 'open economy'. Autarky in the political sense is not necessarily an economic phenomenon; for example, a military autarky would be a state that could defend itself without help from another country, or could manufacture all of its weapons without any imports from the outside world. Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially left-wing creeds like African socialism, mutualism, war communism, council communism, Swadeshi, syndicalism (especially anarcho-syndicalism) and leftist populism, generally in an effort to build alternative economic structures or to control resources against structures a particular leftist movement views as hostile. It has also been used in temporary, limited ways by conservative, centrist and nationalist movements, such as in the American system, Juche, mercantilism, the Meiji Restoration, social corporatism, and traditionalist conservatism, usually in an attempt to preserve part of an existing social order or develop a particular industry. Fascist and far-right movements occasionally claimed to strive for autarky in platforms or in propaganda, but in practice crushed existing movements towards self-sufficiency and established extensive capital connections in efforts to ready for expansionist war and genocide while allying with traditional business elites. Autarky may be a policy of a state or other entity when it seeks to be self-sufficient as a whole, but also can be limited to a narrow field such as possession of a key raw material. For example, many countries have a policy of autarky with respect to foodstuffs and water for national-security reasons. By contrast, autarky may be a result of economic isolation or external circumstances in which a state or other entity reverts to localized production when it lacks currency or excess production to trade with the outside world. The word autarky is from the Greek: αὐτάρκεια, which means 'self-sufficiency' (derived from αὐτο-, 'self,' and ἀρκέω, 'to suffice'). The term is sometimes confused with autocracy (Greek: αὐτoκρατία 'government by single absolute ruler') or autarchy (Greek: αὐταρχία – the idea of rejecting government and ruling oneself and no other). Early state societies that can be regarded as autarkic include nomadic pastoralism and palace economy, though over time these tend towards becoming less self-sufficient and more interconnected. The late Bronze Age, for example, saw formerly self-sufficient palace economies rely more heavily on trade, which may have been a contributing factor to the eventual Bronze Age Collapse when multiple crises hit those systems at once. After that collapse, the ideal of autarkeia formed a part of emerging Greek political culture, emphasizing economic self-sufficiency and local self-rule. Medieval communes combined an attempt at overall economic self-sufficiency through the use of common lands and resources with the use of mutual defense pacts, neighborhood assemblies and organized militias to preserve local autonomy against the depredations of the local nobility. Many of these communes later became trading powers such as the Hanseatic League. In some cases, communal village economies maintained their own debt system as part of a self-sufficient economy and to avoid reliance on possibly hostile aristocratic or business interests. While rarer among imperial states, some autarkies did occur during specific time periods. The Ming dynasty, during its later, more isolationist period, kept a closed economy that prohibited outside trade and focused on centralized distribution of goods produced in a localized farms and workshops. A hierarchy of bureaucrats would oversee the distribution of these resources from central depots, including a massive one located in the Forbidden City. That depot was, at the time, the largest logistical base in the world. In some areas of the antebellum South, the enslaved and free black populations forged self-sufficient economies in an effort to avoid reliance on the larger economy controlled by the planter aristocracy. In eastern North Carolina maroon communities, often based in swampy areas, used a combination of agriculture and fishing to forge a 'hidden economy' and secure survival. The relative self-reliance of these maritime African-American populations provided the basis for a strongly abolitionist political culture that made increasingly radical demands after the start of the Civil War. Due to tense relations with some Union commanders and political factions during and after that war, these communities 'focused their organizing efforts on developing their own institutions, their own sense of self-reliance, and their own political strength.' Autarkic ambitions can also be seen in the Populist backlash to the exploitations of free trade in the late 19th-century and in many early Utopian Socialist movements. Mutual aid societies like the Grange and Sovereigns of Industry attempted to set up self-sufficient economies (with varying degrees of success) in an effort to be less dependent on what they saw as an exploitative economic system and to generate more power to push for reforms.