Autarchism
{{short description|Political philosophy}}
{{about|the libertarian ideology||Autarchy (disambiguation)}}
{{distinguish|Autarky}}
{{Libertarianism US|schools}}
Autarchism is a political philosophy that promotes the principles of individualism and the moral ideology of individual liberty and self-reliance. It rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself to the exclusion of rule by others.
Overview
Robert LeFevre, recognized as an autarchist by Murray Rothbard,Rothbard, Murray N. (2007). [https://mises.org/books/betrayal.pdf The Betrayal of the American Right] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141016132627/https://mises.org/books/betrayal.pdf |date=2014-10-16 }}, Ludwig von Mises Institute, p. 187. {{ISBN|978-1-933550-13-8}}. distinguished autarchism from anarchy, whose economics he felt entailed interventions contrary to freedom.[http://fair-use.org/rampart-journal/1965/12/autarchy-versus-anarchy "Autarchy vs Anarchy" by Robert LeFevre] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606005501/http://fair-use.org/rampart-journal/1965/12/autarchy-versus-anarchy |date=2011-06-06 }}. Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought Vol. 1, No. 4 (Winter, 1965): 30–49. In professing "a sparkling and shining individualism" while "it advocates some kind of procedure to interfere with the processes of a free market", anarchy seemed to LeFevre to be self-contradictory. 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".[http://fair-use.org/rampart-journal/1966/06/autarchy "Autarchy" by Robert LeFevre] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606005739/http://fair-use.org/rampart-journal/1966/06/autarchy |date=2011-06-06 }}. Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 1966): 1–18.
Fusing these influences, LeFevre 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". 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".
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) biographer Robert D. Richardson described Emerson's anarchy as {{"'}}autarchy', rule by self".{{cite book|author=Ralph Waldo Emerson|title=The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n73fdFhQxxUC&pg=PA849|year=2009|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-41991-0|page=849}}{{cite book|last= Richardson |first= Robert D Jr.|year= 1997|title= Emerson: The Mind on Fire|publisher= University of California Press|isbn= 0-520-20689-4 |page= 535}} Philip Jenkins has stated that "Emersonian ideas stressed individual liberation, autarchy, self-sufficiency and self-government, and strenuously opposed social conformity".{{cite book |last= Jenkins |first= Philip |year= 1995 |title= A History of the United States |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan |isbn= 0-312-16361-4 |page= [https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds00jenk/page/108 108] |url-access= registration |url= https://archive.org/details/historyofuniteds00jenk/page/108 }}
See also
References
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External links
{{Wiktionary|autarchy}}
- [https://mises.org/library/introduction-robert-lefevres-nature-man-and-his-government The Nature of Man and His Government by Robert LeFevre] – an introduction by Rose Wilder Lane (1959).
{{Libertarianism}}
{{political ideologies}}
Category:Anarcho-capitalism by form