Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency (also called self-containment) is the state of not requiring any aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy. On a national scale, a totally self-sufficient economy that does not trade with the outside world is called an autarky.
The term self-sufficiency is usually applied to varieties of sustainable living in which nothing is consumed outside of what is produced by the self-sufficient individuals. Examples of attempts at self-sufficiency in North America include simple living, homesteading, off-the-grid, survivalism, DIY ethic and the back-to-the-land movement.
Practices that enable or aid self-sufficiency include autonomous building, permaculture, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy. The term is also applied to limited forms of self-sufficiency, for example growing one's own food or becoming economically independent of state subsidies.
Influential people
See also
- Alternative food
- Amish
- Anarchism
- In-situ resource utilization
- List of food self-sufficiency rates by country
- Off grid
- Preppers
- Resilience
- Self-sustainability
- Survivalism
References
- Five acres and independence, 1973 book, by Maurice Grenville Kains, Dover books. ISBN 0-486-20974-1
External links
