Editing Collusion (section)

=== Tacit collusion ===
Covert collusion is known as [[tacit collusion]] and is considered legal. [[Adam Smith]] in ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' explains that since the masters (business owners) are fewer in number, it is easier to collude to serve common interests among those involved, such as maintaining low wages, whilst it is difficult for the labour to coordinate to protect their interests due to their vast numbers. Hence, business owners have a bigger advantage over the working class. Nevertheless, according to Adam Smith, the public rarely hears about coordination and collaborations that occur between business owners as it takes place in informal settings.<ref name="WoN">{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf |title=''A Critique of Political Economy''}}</ref> Some forms of explicit collusion are not considered impactful enough on an individual basis to be considered illegal, such as that which occurred by the social media group [[WallStreetBets]] in the [[GameStop short squeeze]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2021/02/ethics-of-the-gamestop-short-squeeze/ |title=Ethics of the GameStop Short Squeeze |last=McConnell |first=Doug |publisher=University of Oxford}}</ref>
There are many ways that implicit collusion tends to develop:
* The practice of stock analyst conference calls and meetings of industry participants almost necessarily results in tremendous amounts of strategic and price transparency. This allows each firm to see how and why every other firm is pricing their products.
* If the practice of the industry causes more complicated pricing, which is hard for the consumer to understand (such as [[risk-based pricing]], hidden taxes and fees in the wireless industry, negotiable pricing), this can cause competition based on price to be meaningless (because it would be too complicated to explain to the customer in a short advertisement). This causes industries to have essentially the same prices and compete on advertising and image, something theoretically as damaging to consumers as normal price fixing.<ref>{{Cite web |last=PricewaterhouseCoopers |title=The telecom price wars continue to rage in the global wireless industry |url=https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/gx/en/about/media/press-releases/telco-price-wars-continue.html |access-date=2023-04-19 |website=PwC}}</ref>