autarky

noun

au·​tar·​ky ˈȯ-ˌtär-kē 

1

: self-sufficiency, independence

specifically : national economic self-sufficiency and independence

2

: a policy of establishing a self-sufficient and independent national economy

Examples of autarky in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

After decades of political purges, economic autarky, and suffocating social control under Mao Zedong, Deng began stabilizing Chinese politics, removing bans on private enterprise and foreign investment and giving individuals greater freedom in their daily lives. —Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs, 9 Nov. 2022

Mulder argues that instead of keeping the peace, this form of economic warfare aggravated the tensions of the 1930s, encouraging austerity and autarky and restraining smaller states but backfiring against the larger authoritarian ones, such as Italy. —Nicholas Mulder, Foreign Affairs, 14 Dec. 2021

In this world, American autarky just will not work. —Time, 11 Oct. 2022

Once a backward autarky, Russia now had real banks and a stock exchange. —WSJ, 15 June 2022

Putin and his inner circle are the only ones who aspire to Russian autarky. —Nate Sibley, National Review, 23 Feb. 2022

But punitive Western sanctions could thrust Russia back into a period of relative autarky, where it is forced to adapt to relative economic self-sufficiency, says Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. —Noah Robertson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Mar. 2022

A hundred people living in face-to-face autarky, a seasonal festival site like Burning Man: even these could, in the right circumstances, count as cities. —Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Review of Books, 16 Dec. 2021

By the last half-century of the rule of the czars, Alexander III was shoring up his absolute autarky by bloody means, such as passing the infamous May Laws that set off hundreds of pogroms against the Russian empire’s Jews. —Nicholas Clairmont, Washington Examiner, 4 Feb. 2021

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin autarkia, borrowed from Greek autárkeia "self-sufficiency," derivative of autárkēs "self-sufficient, strong enough on one's own," from aut- aut- + -arkēs, adjective derivative from the stem of arkéō, arkeîn "to hold off, repel, provide defense, assist, be sufficient, be satisfied" — more at ark

First Known Use

1657, in the meaning defined at sense 1