Talk:Cartel

Need to extend Cartels to include Standard Cartels

The present description focus on formalise agreementsd on price or limiations on supply to drive up prices, but fail to recognice the aim to control market processes by creating a lock-in to members of a group.

Such constructi is Digital Cash that operated without gatekeepers - even through they of course need infrastructure.

Mobile Phone cartels that effectively create lock-ins with either teleoperators or devices manufacturers. Examples of what is prevented is P2P and more loosely coupled commmunication - in effect the mobile internet operarates in direct contradiction to the open internet.

We see similar problems everywhere where "stnadards" are used to establish power bases for members by preventing competition that innovate the market structures.

As Lessing pointed out - CODE IS LAW, even through legislation is one of the biggest barriers to innovation, technical standards has turned into an even bigger problem. If standards dictate market structures, it creates market distortions.

The generic alternative is something like OPEN SEMANTIC STANDARD, i.e. higherlevel semantic characterisation of an areas that all possible solutions can be mapped and compared towards - modeldriven, at run-time and dynamic.

Security is the toughest area as it is probably the biggest source of problems in all other IT fields. But simply to create a Payment Standard that can cover both Digital Cash and EMV-payment cards is a way to start. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.48.58.238 (talk) 07:46, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

DeBeers NPOV problem

The first sentence of the paragraph on debeers initially read (emphasis mine):

De Beers has long controlled diamond production and prices from its stronghold in South Africa, often by violence. Recently they have been implicated in sectarian violence in several African countries, including Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire.

It was recently modified to read:

De Beers has long controlled diamond production and prices from its stronghold in South Africa. Recently they have been unfairly implicated in sectarian violence in several African countries, including Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire.

The latter of these is clearly a biased wording. The former may or may not be biased (depending on if it's true or not), but definitely needs sources. I've taken both out for now. The bigger question: Do we even need a whole paragraph on DeBeers' activities in the middle of this article? Isn't the DeBeers article enough?

-- Tyler 04:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes. And much of the other parts are POV as well. This article needs serious cleanup. mrholybrain 11:56, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

i don't see any POV problems, can you be more specific? i agree that the DeB and sectarian violence link needs to be sourced, and does not directly concern this article (unless the accusation against de beers is that it seeks to control supply of diamonds from these conflict regions to further its monopoly position - a stretch).

i have located the following quote from the LSE's global civil society yearbook 2001 (page 12)[1] (google cache, may not be current) which can be used as a source for the statement that de beers has faced criticism over conflict diamonds. but, as i said, whether that fact belongs in this article is doubtful.

29 February - In response to criticism from NGOs, De Beers, [...] announces that its diamonds will henceforth carry a guarantee that they have not been bought from armed groups in conflict areas

Doldrums 10:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

'De Beers announces that its diamonds will henceforth carry a guarantee'

Guaranteed by whom? DeBeers? :-) 218.111.169.45 16:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)Raydar More the point of view issue, where's any actual relevance to the meaning and definition of cartel? Whether or not deBeers is a cartel has nothing to do with the whole blood diamond issue. 81.19.57.130 18:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC) Anne Wolfe

DeBeers is a singular company. They, alone do not establish a cartel, but form a monopoly (single seller) of sorts. Whether or not it is NPOV is irrelevant, and should be discussed in either the Monopoly article or the DeBeers article

I just want to quickly add this: Cartels in nature are a bad thing. So, to get rid of the lack of neutrality, get rid of every exempt example: DeBeers is not exactly a good example, because the companies who sell the diamonds are not the people who control them, exactly. While DeBeers does have a...not so clean history, one could call those statements Slander. The mention of a monopoly, however, does focus on the right material. If DeBeers was a cartel, People's, and many other Diamond-available stores would be considered cartels. Instead of naming DeBeers, make mention of how Diamond-available stores are forced to do business with the Diamond cartel, which we all know exists. This way, it's not biased, NPOV, or slanted from the neutral territory. 74.12.8.44 13:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC) Joe Caron

Introduction: editorializing by examples

The introduction currently reads:

Note that a single entity that holds a monopoly by this definition cannot be a cartel, though it may be guilty of abusing said monopoly in other ways. As such, it is inaccurate to describe (for example) Microsoft or AT&T as cartels.

By placing the bolded comments side-by-side, the author is clearly inviting the reader to draw conclusions as to what companies abuse monopolies. Although Microsoft and AT&T might well abuse monopolies, this statement would belong, if anywhere, in the articles on Microsoft, AT&T and Monopoly. The addition of the examples does not in fact add anything to the paragraph, as the point is clearly stated in the first sentence. I've removed the second sentence. Asbestos (not signed in) 13:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Attention! Fake information!

Re: "== Origin == The name is derived from Edmund Cartel and Georges Cartel. They were successful businessmen in the grain industry in Rennes, before moving to Paris. There they encouraged firms to work together to raise prices. They then left France and went to New York and Chicago, fixing the prices of pork and railway materials. The concept was then legislated against. (Ref: [2] = http://ehg.org.uk/edric1.html"

Recommendation: Don't believe this lousy website again! The Archives of Rennes – I contacted – couldn’t verify these persons named ‘Cartel’ (Rennes was their home town!). Another example: the Bavarian village 'asphalt' does not exit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muniham (talk • contribs) 06:30, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Modifying or eliminating the Adam Smith quote

I would respectfully object to the use of Adam Smith's quote in said manner. The readers of Wikipedia would be best served to understand the intentions of Adam Smith by either being shown the entire quote, which attacks regulations upon commerce, or it not being shown at all.

To digress:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.

"A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it.

"A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary.

"An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye-law with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever.

- The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

Too narrow a definition

This article seems to be written from a very narrow viewpoint, so narrow that is becomes completely wrong in parts. The opening sentence, i.e. "A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among competing firms", gives me the impression that it was written by someone only aware of 20th century business use. The 'Origins' section implies that the term came into being in the 1880s, and states that it came into the Anglosphere in the 1930s. I have no idea when it originated or where from but the word was in the Anglosphere at the turn of the 19th century when it was used to describe a communication channel between warring nations. I know for certain that a ship was used for a regular run between Boston & Nova Scotia for the exchange of captured seamen during the War of 1812 and that this was described as the 'cartel'. I also believe that the word may have been used during the 18th century to describe a go-between for offended parties prior to a duel when a 'second' was unavailable.

I am unable to comment of whether the word applies to the channel or the agreement, and do not think that the agreement needs to be formal.

So perhaps the opening sentence must be more in line of "A cartel is an agreement among competing entities". This leaves the rest of the article requiring a major rewrite, something I would have a go at except that I do not have enough certain knowledge. Any comments? kimdino (talk) 02:35, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I see that three years after my previous comment the page 'Cartel' is still about the modern commercial use of the word with a link to a disambiguation page where links are provided to pages for political usage (2 internal usages + 1 external), modern drug cartels and cartel as a ship.

Surely one must see the commonality and make this commonality the subject of the root page. The application of the term to modern business practice is only one (sub-)aspect of 'cartel'. It indicates that many people are failing to see the wood for the trees.

The drug cartels are the same as any other business cartel. A cartel between milk suppliers is the same as a cartel between drug suppliers. Any differences in methods and application used by the cartel members comes purely from whether the service they are providing is illegal or not, and will exist independently of the existence of a cartel. Therefore 'drug cartel' comes firmly under the heading of 'business or economic cartel' and has no need of a separate entry.

'Cartel_(ship)' is part of cartel (international politics). When the phrase 'the cartel' was used to describe a ship it was used as an abbreviation for 'the cartel ship' i.e. the ship provided for the purposes of the cartel. In the same way as we may say "Take the Ford" instead of saying "Take the Ford car". The provision of these ships was just one aspect of the cartel, as there need to be more dealings between two warring states than just the battlegrounds. Negotiations, exchanges etc had to be made some way, even in the 18th century. I do not believe there is any need for a separate 'cartel_(ship)' page, only as a couple of paragraphs under 'cartel (international politics)' or whatever the page ends up as. Having it on the same page will also serve to make the proper usage of the ship clearer. kimdino (talk) 19:45, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

   Agreed. I concur on effectively all the points made above; both the introductory verbiage of this page should at least reflect that this page only addresses a narrow contemporary usage of the term (it is still used today in a looser and/or multivariable sense amongst academics, etc.), 1) that disambiguation should be the primary entry point to this topic, 2) the word is much older than presently attested) and 3) there is a strong case to tag this page as lacking NPOV.

   My own understanding of the word is that it derives from the Latin 'carta', "card", an inference to something like the modern phrase "card-carrying member", and does imply a loose sense of organizational "collusion"; i.e., an unusual but often pragmatic cooperation between otherwise competing entities. I believe it does contain (from it's introduction to the English language to present) something of a negative connotation, more often used by opponents of said "organizing", to imply some type of unfairness or corruption of  extant written or unwritten practice, bu, has often also been "reclaimed", even prior to the concept of "word reclamation".

   I do not believe there is any real case to be made for its definition to be restricted to companies or corporations, or that it is necessarily "anticompetitive". It does seem that today the term (as far as I tell) is used only in reference to "economic" arrangements, as opposed to what is cited above (that is, using the word "cartel" with regards to things like the exchange of prisoners of war or "cartel ships", etc., seems to have dropped out of modern usage). However, it does not necessarily imply "anticompetitive" practices, or that the goal is "increased profit". Examples: early labor unions were often called as "worker cartels" (and I suppose in turn those organizing might attach to their employers a phrase like "robber baron", which is more easily understood as an epithet).

  Kaiser Permanente is frequently referred to as a "cartel", both because of its origins, and its present organizational structure. An unusually agreement (for its time), it was formed from an agreement between workers (dam-workers, if I recall correctly), their employers, and the local hospitals/health care providers for the standardized pre-payment of fees to the hospital, allowing the hospitals to remain solvent in the mid- and long-term (as, at the time, workplace injuries often happened en masse). In this case, it was in the interest of all  parties otherwise frequently "in opposition" (with regards to wages, profits, etc.) to come to this arrangement, and without doing so, workers might not have been able to access (let alone afford) health care; the employers in turn might not have sufficient labor, and the local hospitals/doctors could not remain maintain a stable income, presence at all (feast/famine problem). Today's Kaiser Permanente is still sometimes called a cartel, for somewhat different reasons: it is not a formally structured monolithic entity, and exists only as an aligned/reciprocal group of profit and nonprofit organizations (depending on locality and function). Even with this cooperative agreement, and it is not usually considered monopolistically anticompetitive, as it is not imposing artificial scarcity for the sake of profit, and has outside competition; the economic advantage won comes in some economies of scale/shared resources, and perhaps more importantly, the limitation of liability (it is effectively impossible for massive damages to be awarded in class-action suits against Kaiser, simply because there is no such entity).

  Perhaps most relevant: I believe the drug cartel (the vastly predominant use of the word today) is called as much, not because there is immense profit to be made by excluding/formally subsuming competition, in order make their product artificially scarce; the product is already artificially scarce because it is illegal; and any true monopoly (in the sense we usually use it, as a formal horizontally and/or vertically integrated company that imposes artificial scarcity to avoid competition and raise prices and profits) would be easily recognized and eliminated easily by law [enforcement]; or otherwise, they would "compete" themselves out of existence (violently). They are called "cartels" only because they are informal arrangements amongst otherwise competitive, violent, localized gangs;  aligning into a loose cooperative framework between local factions is effectively the the only means by which for the drug trade (both as in industry and as a "career") is viable or profitable at all, but only by 1) stopping ,or merely reducing, intra-cartel violence, and 2) the  non-existence of a traceablely formal hierarchy, which makes cartels and their leaders difficult to prosecute and eliminate wholesale.

  Lastly, I'll mention (I don't recall if this is mentioned presently on the present page) OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is very frequently called a cartel, both by academics, and in the news media. In this case, it is explicitly anticompetitive—anticompetitive practice, the imposition of artificial scarcity, is its stated scope and mission—it is still considered "unusual", as nation-states (and the supranational organizations they form) were not widely considered capable of non-competitive collusion prior to its formation, and there exists no supranational framework to prosecute them, in the way that antitrust legislation works against corporate monopolies.

   See also: [3]https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=cartel

Gsnxn (talk) 06:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I think there should be more emphasis to direct inquiries toward disambiguation. Evidently the use of the word has changed over the years, such as: " drug cartels are no longer[when?] actually cartels, but the term stuck and it is now[when?] popularly used to refer to any criminal narcotics related organization" -from another wiki article.Flight Risk (talk) 13:01, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Public Cartels are sometimes subtle and accepted without real attention to the subject. Notably, The US Congress decides its perks. The benefiting are the Administrative populous; The support staff. Medical and retire4ment benefits are a bonus for Government Employees. Medicare has been replaced by private insurance. Retirement packages are more generous than Social Security. June 22, 2016 (FJF) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.105.223.182 (talk) 12:10, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

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Copyright problem

Mz7 has removed some content apparently copied from this 1999 document (thanks, Mz7!). That material was apparently added during this series of edits in 2007, which completely over-wrote the existing article with content partly from that source, and all showing every sign of having been copied from elsewhere. Our normal practice in a situation like this is to roll back to the last clean version before the first copyvio; that might be approximately this one – essentially the whole of the current article would disappear. The alternative is for the page to be completely rewritten from the sources. Any volunteers? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, there was no reply here, so I've gone ahead with the roll-back – please see below. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Trade unions

> "Although cartels are usually thought of as a group of corporations, some[who?] consider trade unions to be cartels, as they seek to raise the price of labor (wages) by preventing competition."

Besides using unsubstantiated weasel words, this is a somewhat strange claim with some obvious flaws. It's not completely baseless, though. The original sentence had a link to [4], which was removed by an edit at "13:49, 9 March 2017‎" when it was discovered the link was dead. As a first step, I'm re-inserting a reference to the article here, using the archive.org copy.

I don't personally find it to be a valid position, but at least now readers can see the reasoning for themselves, and the name of the economist who wrote it (and his libertarian free-market positions and associations, such as "Congress should repeal all antitrust regulation").

I'm not an economist myself, so I have no idea if this is a widely held belief, or just one lone article. If it is an extremist position, feel free to delete the whole paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.109.5.23 (talk) 21:35, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Answer to the merger proposals of Feb 2020 „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel (concept)“ or „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel“: Hierarchical levels as criterion for article mergers, article divisions, or article renamings

I think, to jugde about merger proposals, we should develop a compass about what change leads to more clarity. For this, I would suggest a map of the hierarchic levels of the relevant lemmas. So, what among the existing article terms are general or – on the other hand - sub topics or even sub-sub-topics?

I try to develop such a scheme as follows: The top level is of course the „cartel“ as a general, comprehensive concept. For this we have „cartel (disambiguation) and „cartel (concept)“. Thus, these could, in principle and following linguistic logic, be merged. But under what title? – To choose „cartel (concept)“ would be an innovation for Wikipedia, nevertheless a concept explanation provides the disambiguation anyhow. To choose „cartel (disambiguation)“ would provide a more than short article limited to the switching function for other articles.

Having identified the general term like above, all specific cartels, such as „cartel (intergov. agreement)“, „state cartel“ and so on, are second level. Third level is for instance, the „cartel (ship)“, because subordinate to „cartel (intergov. agreement)“. In this perspective, the seemingly general article „cartel“ is wrongly named. It should better be called „cartel (economy)“, because it is limited to this sub area of real cartels, who regulate prices and output quantities. (However, this is the most important subject area of „cartel“). Thus, we have at least three articles of the second level: „cartel (intergov. agreement)“, „state cartel“ and „cartel (economy)“. Now the above reasonings can be applied to the proposals of article mergers:

• „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel (concept)“: this would be the same as merging „vegetable“ with „beans“, while having other special vegetable separate
• „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel“ [in the identified sense of economic]: this also would mean the merger of a general and a specific term

Nevertheless, to my opinion, one change should surely be done:

• Rename „cartel“ to „cartel (economy)".

Two other changes should be discussed and, if positive, done:

• Could „cartel (ship) be integrated into „cartel (intergov. agreement) = a ship running to fullfil such an agreement. (This would be no violation of the rule of separating general and special subjects, because on the level of „cartel (ship)“ there is nothing similar, meaning: no second manifestation of the sub-sub-topic level. This material stands alone yet.)
• Can a disambiguation („cartel (dis …)“ be merged with an analytical article (on the same ground = „cartel (concept)“), which tells about the reasons of the different meanings?

L-scriptor (talk) 11:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Renaming of „cartel“ to „cartel (economy)“

This article pretends to be general by starting with „cartel“ only. But then a limitation follows: „This article is about economic cartels“. Thus, we start with an imprecise lemma.

To avoid this, we should rename „cartel“ to „cartel (economy)". - The colleagues from the French and German Wikipedia use this designation since long: „Cartel (économie)“ and „Wirtschaftskartell“.

L-scriptor (talk) 15:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

---

   I agree: this page, as of 2020, should not occupy the unqualified "cartel" namespace. Not because it isn't the "correct" or "original" meaning of "cartel", but simply because the word "cartel" in English has been subsumed by the concept of a drug cartel. I know this because I myself was trying to find this page via a google search, and Google supplies "Sinaloa cartel" and drug cartel in its top results; this Wikipedia page did not even make the first page of search results. I think rename this page to "cartel (economics)" or "cartel (business)", and having the disabiguation page occupy the space of "cartel", would actually increase traffic and potentially affect improvement to this page, given its current forced state of obscurity.

Gsnxn (talk) 02:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)