Examples of attempts at self-sufficiency in North America include simple living, food storage, homesteading, off-the-grid, survivalism, DIY ethic, and the back-to-the-land movement.
Practices that enable or aid self-sustainability include autonomous building, permaculture, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy.
The term is also applied to limited forms of self-sustainability, for example growing one's own food or becoming economically independent of state subsidies.
However, 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.
Among people, social ties have been shown to be correlated to happiness and success as much as self-sustainability.