The desire to collude and thereby to raise prices must be distinguished from the ability to do so.
Not only is it difficult for rival companies to agree on the production cuts each must make in order to force up price, but it is difficult to prevent each company from undercutting the others in order to increase its sales. It is unlikely that, without–and sometimes even with–government support, firms will long curb their rivalry–even in industries with high levels of concentration…
It is not easy to organize a cartel, melding highly autonomous organizations into a monopolistic facsimile. There are markets to divide, prices to set, and production quotas to assign.
Successful operation is even harder than initial organization. Members must remain persuaded that they enjoy net benefits from collusion compared to acting as independent agents.
The more profitable the collusive efforts, the greater the incentive for outsiders to seek admission or to organize their own club or individually to compete.
The more numerous the participants and the more lucrative the tightening of the screws on consumers, the greater the temptation for individual members to cheat–and the greater the fear of each that some other member will cheat.
Long-term survival of the cartel has two fundamental requirements: first, cheating by a member on the stipulated prices, outputs and markets must be detectable; second, detected cheating must be adequately punishable without leading to a break-up of the cartel.
Bill Allen
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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