Autarkeia
αὐτάρκεια (autarkeia)
The Epicurean self-sufficiency is not the proud autonomy of one who does without others, but the art of needing only a little—just enough so that fortune can no longer lay hold. It is won by sifting desires: by distinguishing the needs that nature herself limits from the empty desires that have no end, the wise lower the threshold of sufficiency until it is always within reach. Not a suffered deprivation, but an independence gained.
La nature, pour sa subsistance, n'exige que des choses très faciles à trouver ; celles qui sont rares et extraordinaires lui sont inutiles, et ne peuvent servir qu'à la vanité ou à l'excès.
The word is composed of autos, self, and the verb arkeîn, to suffice, to be enough: autarkeia, the fact of being self-sufficient. Chauffepié, in his translation of the Letter to Menoeceus, renders it as “frugality”—which captures the practice without revealing its driving force. The driving force is not lack, but freedom: one who needs only water and bread no longer depends on what fortune gives or takes away.
Self-sufficiency is the means, not the end. It limits desire so that the soul may cease to be disturbed—it serves ataraxia, the absence of disturbance. This is how it must be distinguished: autarkeia names what one needs (little), ataraxia the state that follows (tranquility). One may aim for sufficiency and yet remain agitated by a false opinion; self-sufficiency alone is not enough—judgment must also align.
It is also distinct from the Taoist “knowing sufficiency” (zhī zú, 知足). Both reject the idea that wealth is a quantity, but through opposite gestures: Epicurus calculates—he weighs each desire, sets a limit, and makes it a reasoned habit; Laozi lets go—he sets no limit, he removes the very impulse to acquire (see wu-wei). One regulates appetite through an understanding of just measure, the other ceases to chase. Self-sufficiency ≠ non-action: to suffice through calculation is not to suffice through abandoning pursuit.
It is further distinct from the Stoic self-sufficiency. In Seneca, “the sage is self-sufficient” does not mean he has reduced his needs, but that his virtue alone is a complete good: “he finds within himself ample resources,” and “counts as good nothing that men can take away.” Boethius extends this thread: sufficiency is not about having little, but about possessing the whole—the sovereign good of which riches, honors, and glory are but scattered fragments (see beatitude). Epicurus limits desire to need nothing rare; the Stoic and Boethius relocate the good within, where nothing external can touch it. The first makes sufficiency small; the latter make it unassailable.