Autarchy

Autarchy

Definition
Autarchy - political self-rule; complete independence, particularly economic self-sufficiency, in which through government controls a nation's economy (or a group of nations) is isolated from the rest of the world. During the Cold War the Soviet bloc practised economic autarchy, trading only within itself.
Comparative Advantage v. Autarchy - This is a brief discussion that looks at the gains from trade using comparative advantage over autarchy (absolute advantage) with example from US and Japan trading policy.

Russian/Soviet Economy
- History #1 This document describes the history of Russian/Soviet economic policies.

Chinese Economy
- China #1 - A review of the "insane" policy of autarchy of Mao. A good history of the negative consequences of autarchy on China's development and desire to abandon the policy in the future.

20th Century Economic History
- 20th Century #1 - "Globalization, Convergence, and History," by Jeffrey G. Williamson, Laird Bell Professor of Economics at Harvard University. This is the transcript of the Presidential Address to the Economic History Association delivered on the evening of September 9, 1995, at the Hotel Inter-Continental, Chicago. Williamson argues that most of the convergence between 1850 and 1914 was due to the open economy forces of trade and mass migration. I will by inference also suggest that convergence stopped between 1914 and 1950 because of de-globalization and implosion into autarchy.

Opinions
- David Morris, Vice President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a 19-year-old organization that promotes humanly scaled, environmentally sound economies and institutions. This is an excellent paper. Great insights into topics such as the declining applicability of Adam Smith's and other classical economists theories including the topic of autarchy. Foremost, this is a paper calling for more focus on self-reliance without resorting to complete autarchy for improved economic production and in the interests of national security.