Scholars of medieval agrarian economies have long debated the function of the 'commons'—shared agricultural land. Orthodox historians traditionally maintained that the commons were an inefficient relic of feudalism, where the shared-property structure inevitably led to overuse and soil depletion. Conversely, revisionist economists in the late twentieth century argued that the commons were highly regulated and ecologically sustainable. They posited that the eventual enclosure (privatization) of the commons was driven by aristocratic greed rather than economic necessity. Recently, institutionalist scholar David Olin has synthesized a new framework. Olin accepts the orthodox historians' empirical observation that the commons occasionally suffered from localized soil depletion, but he forcefully rejects their conclusion that this depletion was an inevitable consequence of the shared-property structure itself. Furthermore, while Olin agrees with the revisionist economists that enclosure was primarily driven by elite self-interest, he characterizes the commons not as inherently sustainable, as the revisionists claimed, but rather as a dynamic system that constantly oscillated between periods of depletion and recovery.
Statement: Based on the passage, Olin agrees with the orthodox historians that the shared-property structure of the commons inevitably led to soil depletion, but he aligns with the revisionist economists in attributing the eventual enclosure of the commons to elite self-interest.
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