Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic systems. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance or international trade. If a self-sufficient economy also refuses all trade with the outside world then it is called a closed economy.
Autarky is not necessarily an economic phenomenon; for example, a military autarky would be a state that could defend itself without help from another country, or could manufacture all of its weapons without any imports from the outside world.
Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially left-wing creeds like mutualism, Council Communism, Syndicalism, Democratic Confederalism, Juche and Populism. It has also been used in limited ways by conservative and nationalist movements, such as the American system, the Meiji Restoration and traditionalist conservatism. Fascist and far-right movements occasionally claimed to strive for autarky in platform or propaganda, but in practice crushed existing movements towards self-sufficiency and maintained extensive capital connections in efforts to ready for war and genocide while allying with business elites.
Autarky may be a policy of a state or other entity when it seeks to be self-sufficient as a whole, but also can be limited to a narrow field such as possession of a key raw material. For example, many countries have a policy of autarky with respect to foodstuffs and water for national security reasons. By contrast autarky may be an undesirable result of an economic retreat or malaise, in which a state or other entity reverts to subsistence production when it lacks currency or excess production to trade with the outside world.