The Subsurface Capital Immobilisation: A Critique of Fiscal Circularity and Capital Immobilisation in the High Empire

The current methodological framework of Roman macroeconomics, advanced by Andrew Wilson and OxREP, relies heavily on the quantification of visible trade proxies—shipwreck data, ceramic distribution (amphorae), and monumental surface architecture. While these datasets provide a high-resolution view of liquid capital (wealth in motion), they fail to account for the strategic immobilization of capital (wealth in stasis). By prioritizing the quantifiable artifacts of trade, the OxREP model creates a visibility bias: it treats the Roman economy as a system of flow, while ignoring the ground as a system of storage. This critique argues that a massive percentage of provincial GDP—particularly in high-tax zones like the Civitas Nerviorum—was intentionally fiscally sequestered into the subsurface. To understand the true Roman economy, we must stop looking at what was traded and start looking at what was intentionally buried as a strategic hedge against Imperial fiscal extraction.