Autarky of Great Spaces
The organisation of the world economy into autonomous, self-centred great spaces, in opposition to globalism’s capitalist and free trade dogmas. ‘The autarky of great spaces’. This is a reference to the Historical school of economics, an approach to economics and its administration that arose during the late Nineteenth century in Germany and persisted until the Third Reich. Its adherents maintained that economics could only be understood within the cultural context of a specific historical era, and not using standardised formulas or theories. Its members were also often concerned with the plight of the common workers. Joseph Schumpeter, Werner Sombart, and Max Weber were all members of the school.
Autarky, as defended by the German school of Grossraumautarkie and today by the French Nobel Prize recipient, Maurice Allais, is a response to globalist economics. The autarky of great spaces is no obsidional closure, but an exercise in contingency: only those things that can’t be produced domestically are imported. International exchanges are thus limited, but not suppressed. The objective is political and energy independence, as well as the protection of native industries. At the same time, autarky resists the extremely fragile ‘new economy’, which comes with globalisation, limiting the participation of transnational firms and extra-European financial powers within the European economy. It also concerns itself with the workforce, preventing the employment of non-Europeans, except in special, highly select cases, which can’t be filled by Europeans. Autarky would avoid dependence on imports, creating a vast interior market (Great Europe), capable of absorbing its own products, thus immune to foreign economic reprisals. Autarky’s principle is not the exclusion of imports, but of dependence.
Autarky cannot be practiced solely by France, but must assume a European continental dimension. It’s the inverse of free trade — for it rejects the EU’s open borders, which contributes to unemployment and renders economic revivals ephemeral and haphazard, impinging upon European economic independence. Autarky also has the advantage of discouraging outsourcing, avoiding its multiplier effects within protected economic spaces.
Free trade critics of autarky contend that it would ruin the European export market. This is false: autarky would promote the multiplication of inter-European commercial flows based on commercial preferences for community-made products. A French enterprise would accordingly be obliged to furnish products for European rather than for international markets (if these products are available). To be viable, the planetary economy needs to be organised into relatively impermeable continental spaces that regulate the exchange of merchandise and capital, as well as labour, organising itself into regional modes of production and consumption. Such a model would also combat the cultural homogenisation that comes from concentrated modes of production and consumption, permitting each ‘great space’ (especially in the Third World) to maintain its own economic identity and autonomy.
In respect to energy (and thus ecology), the autarky of great spaces would maximise one’s own resources, freeing it from the present ‘all oil’ logic. Autarky would also affect the cultural realm, policies that in Europe, for instance, would lead to an extension of the idea of ‘cultural exception’, particularly in the field of audio/visual media. After all — it goes without saying — this is already the standard practice in. . .the United States.
Like the formation of Eurosiberia, this vision of autarkic great spaces would undoubtedly be a nightmare for the U.S., for such a self-contained continental space would be perfectly autonomous, especially in respect to energy (oil, gas, etc.) — and no longer dependent on the rest of the world. Free trade and a single planetary economy have weakened economies everywhere, profoundly hurting European interests and creating economic situations that can’t possibly last. The autarky of great spaces, along with a ‘two-tier’ economy, are a revolutionary response to the impending catastrophe of global free trade.
(see economy, organic; economy, two-tier; liberalism, managerial; Eurosiberia)
