Adrian Goldsworthy's examination of the late Roman period documents that the great villa estates of Britain, Gaul, and North Africa actually expanded their self-sufficiency infrastructure throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries, deliberately adding industrial workshops, enlarging grain storage, and diversifying agricultural output, precisely as the broader Imperial economy was contracting around them—these were deliberate strategic decisions by owners who understood that complexity was becoming a liability and self-sufficiency was the only hedge that couldn't be inflated away.