Although autarkic thought has not received much attention from IPE scholars, there is a long history of thinkers who prioritized their state’s economic self-sufficiency in order to enhance its autonomy (economic, political, and/or cultural) from foreign influence. This autarkic goal was rejected by classical economic liberals, neomercantilists, and most Marxists, but autarkic perspectives had at least as important a place in political debates as these other better-studied ones in some pre-1945 contexts. Like the other perspectives examined in this book, some strands of autarkic thought also circulated internationally in the pre-1945 era. This chapter identifies influential autarkic ideas developed by a number of thinkers from places as diverse as Britain (John Maynard Keynes, just briefly in 1933), China (Chen Gongbo), Germany (Johann Fichte, Friedrich Zimmermann), Haiti (Edmund Paul), India (Mohandas Gandhi), Japan (Aizawa Seishisai, Shizuki Tadao), Korea (Lee Hang-ro), Paraguay (José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia), Russia (Peter Kropotkin), Turkey (Sevket Süreyya Aydemir), and the west African colony of the Gold Coast (Kobina Sekyi). The chapter also highlights important disagreements amongst these thinkers, ranging from the specific reasons they prioritized autonomy to their views of the relationship between autarky and peace.

Chapter 8 treats Ivan Turgenev’s influential portrait of a nihilist in his character Bazarov from the novel Fathers and Sons. Turgenev portrays the rise of nihilism as a conflict between the older and the younger generation in Russia that took place after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. With his character sketch of Bazarov, Turgenev made the Russian nihilist movement famous throughout Europe. The story tells of the homecoming of the young Arkady Kirsanov who brings with him his friend from the university, Bazarov. The novel depicts the conflicts that arise when the two young men stay at the rural estate of Arkady’s father. Bazarov claims that nihilism is about negation, and his goal is to destroy everything and start again. When asked what his positive program is for afterwards, he surprisingly says that he does not have one. While Turgenev generally gives a sympathetic sketch of Bazarov, he cannot subscribe to his ideas. Like Jean Paul and Møller, he believes it is impossible to accept the idea that death is annihilation. His model is rather Bazarov’s simple grieving parents, who believe in something higher than death.