Autarchism

"Autarchy" redirects here. For the closed economy, see Autarky.

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 autarchists (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").

Autarchists

Robert LeFevre, a "self-proclaimed autarchist" recognized as such by Murray Rothbard, distinguished autarchism from anarchy, whose economics he felt entailed interventions contrary to freedom, in contrast to his own laissez-faire economics of the Austrian School. 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". 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." 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, 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.". Robert D. Richardson stated that the anarchy Emerson had in mind "would be 'autarchy', rule by self".

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.

See also

• Autocracy
• Individualism
• Libertarianism
• Rational anarchism
• Individualist anarchism
• Anarcho-capitalism

External links

• 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