Autarchism

Part of the Politics series on
Anarchism
Schools of thought Buddhist Capitalist Christian Collectivist Communist Egoist Existentialist Feminist Green Individualist Infoanarchism Insurrectionary Leftist Mutualist National Nihilist Naturist Pacifist Philosophical Platformist Post-anarchist Post-colonial Post-left Primitivist Queer Social Syndicalist Synthesist Vegan Voluntaryist Without adjectives
Theory practice Anarchy Anarchist Black Cross Anti-authoritarianism Anti-militarism Affinity group Black bloc Class struggle Communes Consensus democracy Conscientious objector Decentralization Deep ecology Direct action Direct democracy Dual power Especifismo Expropriative anarchism Free association Free love Freethought Horizontalidad Illegalism Individualism Individual reclamation Isocracy Law Participatory politics Permanent Autonomous Zone Prefigurative politics Propaganda of the deed Refusal of work Revolution Rewilding Social center Social ecology Social insertion Somatherapy Spontaneous order Squatting Temporary Autonomous Zone Union of egoists
People William Godwin Josiah Warren Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Henry David Thoreau Max Stirner Mikhail Bakunin Peter Kropotkin Benjamin Tucker Errico Malatesta Johann Most Leo Tolstoy Emma Goldman Émile Armand Nestor Makhno Rudolf Rocker Buenaventura Durruti Alexander Berkman Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia Volin Murray Bookchin Colin Ward Noam Chomsky Alfredo M. Bonanno John Zerzan
Issues Anarcho-capitalism Animal rights Capitalism Education Criticisms Islam LGBT rights Lifestylism Marxism Nationalism Orthodox Judaism Religion Sex/love Violence
History 1999 WTO Conference protest 1919 United States anarchist bombings Amakasu Incident Anarchist Catalonia Anarchist Exclusion Act Australian Anarchist Centenary Barcelona May Days Biennio rosso Carnival Against Capitalism Escuela Moderna International Conference of Rome Hague Congress Haymarket affair High Treason Incident Congress of Amsterdam Individualist anarchism in Europe Individualist anarchism in France Kate Sharpley Library Kronstadt rebellion Labadie Collection LIP Manifesto of the Sixteen May 1968 May Day Paris Commune Provo Red inverted triangle Free Territory Spanish Revolution Third Russian Revolution Tragic Week Trial of the thirty
Culture Anarchist Bookfair Anarcho-punk Arts Black anarchism Culture jamming DIY culture Freeganism Independent Media Center Infoshop The Internationale Jewish anarchism Land and liberty Lifestylism Popular education Property is theft! Radical cheerleading Radical environmentalism Squatting Symbolism Terminology A las barricadas
Economics Co-operatives Counter-economics Free school Free store Gift economy Infoanarchism Market abolitionism Mutual aid Mutualism Participatory economics Planned Economy Really Really Free Market Wage slavery Workers' self-management
By region Africa Argentina Australia Austria-Hungary Brazil Canada China Cuba Ecuador England France Germany Greece India Iceland Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea Mexico Poland Russia Spain Sweden Turkey Ukraine United States Vietnam
Lists Anarcho-punk bands Communities Fictional characters Jewish anarchists Musicians Organizations Periodicals Poets Pornographers Russian anarchists
Related topics Anti-capitalism Anti-consumerism Anti-corporatism Anti-fascism Anti-globalization Antimilitarism Anti-statism Anti-war Autarchism Autonomism Labour movement Left communism Libertarianism Libertarian perspectives on revolution Libertarian socialism Situationist International
Anarchism Portal Politics portal
v t e

Autarchism (from Greek, "belief in self rule") is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other. Advocates of the philosophy are autarchist (from Greek, "one who believes in self rule"), while the state in which everyone rules themselves and no one else is called autarchy (from Greek αὐταρχία autarchia, "state of self rule").^{[citation needed]}

Autarchists

Robert LeFevre, a "self-proclaimed autarchist"^[1] recognized as such by Murray Rothbard,^[2] distinguished autarchism from anarcho-capitalism, whose economics he felt entailed interventions contrary to freedom, in contrast to his own laissez faire economics of the Austrian School.^[3] In professing "a sparkling and shining individualism" while "it advocates some kind of procedure to interfere with the processes of a free market", anarcho-capitalism seemed to LeFevre to be self-contradictory.^[3] He situated the fundamental premise of autarchy within the Stoicism of philosophers such as Zeno, Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius, which he summarized in the credo, "Control yourself".^[4] Fusing these influences together, he arrived at the autarchist philosophy: "The Stoics provide the moral framework; the Epicureans, the motivation; the praxeologists, the methodology. I propose to call this package of ideological systems autarchy, because autarchy means self-rule."^[4] LeFevre stated that "the bridge between Spooner and modern-day autarchists was constructed primarily by persons such as H. L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, and Mark Twain".^[3]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he did not call himself an autarchist, is considered to have espoused autarchy. Philip Jenkins has stated that "Emersonian ideas stressed individual liberation, autarchy, self-sufficiency and self-government, and strenuously opposed social conformity.".^[5] Robert D. Richardson stated that the anarchy Emerson had in mind "would be 'autarchy', rule by self".^[6]

The essay "Autarchy, or, the art of self government," published in 1691 in London and listing the author as "G.B.," is attributed to George Burghope by NUC and to both Burghope and George Bright by Donald Goddard Wing.^[7]

See also

• Anarchy
• Individualism
• Libertarianism

References

External links

Look up Autarchy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Politics by Ralph Waldo Emerson - In it, he advocates the practice of self-government as the most rightful way to organize individuals in society (1844).
• The Nature of Man and His Government by Robert LeFevre - an introduction by Rose Wilder Lane (1959).
• On the Other Hand by Robert LeFevre - Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer, 1966): 83–88
• Self-Government by Donald J. Boudreaux - The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - September 2000 Vol. 50 No. 9
• The Center For Self Rule - Educational organization advocating Autarchism