Self-sustaining

A system is self-sustaining (or self-sufficient) if it can maintain itself by independent effort. The system self-sustainability is:

Self-sustainability is considered one of the "ilities" and is closely related to sustainability and availability. In the economics literature, a system that has the quality of being self-sustaining is also referred to as an autarky.

Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky would be a state that could defend itself without help from another country.

According to the Department of Labor of the state of Idaho, an employed adult shall be considered self-sufficient if the family income exceeds 200% of the Office of Management and Budget poverty income level guidelines.

In peer-to-peer swarming systems, a swarm is self-sustaining if all the blocks of its files are available among peers (excluding seeds and publishers).

Whereas self-sustainability is a quality of one’s independence, survivability applies to the future maintainability of one’s self-sustainability and indeed one’s existence. Many believe that more self-sustainability guarantees a higher degree of survivability. But just as many oppose this, arguing that it is not self-sustainability that is essential for survivability, but on the contrary specialization and thus dependence.

Consider the first two examples presented above. Among countries, commercial treats are as important as self-sustainability. An autarky is usually inefficient. Among people, social ties have been shown to be correlated to happiness and success as much as self-sustainability.

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