Crime increases to capture any excess resources in the absence of functioning society, too. Generally, in a functioning society, price-fixing and collusion and

Crime increases to capture any excess resources in the absence of functioning society, too. Generally, in a functioning society, price-fixing and collusion and extortion count as crime. I would say the distinction between this and collective rent fixing (coordinated, or as an epiphenomenon of the underlying system with self-interested rational actors) is pretty moot: society either decides to dictate the limits of this behavior, or it does not. The idea that exploding rent prices are inevitable and unquestionable is… well, it's an idea. One might contest the idea of building a functioning society on that assumption. Might consider that behavior being something in the way of criminal behavior, at least on the scale of petty larceny, if not something more serious.