There is a much much stronger historical precedent of businesses competing rather than colluding. Price fixing isn’t a Nash Equilibrium, and therefore, isn’t a

There is a much much stronger historical precedent of businesses competing rather than colluding. Price fixing isn’t a Nash Equilibrium, and therefore, isn’t a stable state. The market will ruthlessly push prices on goods to their lowest profitable price by means of the marginal consumer. While price fixing obviously happens, it usually only happens in markets with a small number of producers. And even then, it will inevitably collapse. Look around, goods are very competitive nowadays. Computers are competitively priced, all goods on Amazon, nyc $1 pizza, food, gasoline, cars, clothes, etc. Very few businesses have the fat margins you claim are the norm. And the businesses that do are usually not producing goods, but renting services: telecoms, advertising, etc.