When companies collude to fix price of food items or commodities, its seen as a big fraud and they are fined. Also, there are anti-trust laws to govern mergers and acquisitions that will reduce competition and lead to price raise.
However, OPEC countries collude all the time and artificially keep the price of oil high by cutting down production. Why isn’t the rest of the world up in arms against the 10+ countries that drive up prices?
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Your right it would normally be considered unethical. But they control most of the oil, so they can do whatever they want.
Where else are they going to get oil?
It’s really that simple. They produce, now that the U.S. is out of the oil biz, the majority of the oil. So if they shut off the flow (which they did in the 70s) the world suffers.
Well first off there are already enough wars and manipulations for oil.
Also these are sovereign nations deciding over policy. It’s very different than companies operating under laws of a nation. Companies operate under law of land. Countries make the law of land. It’s fair. Other countries also make trade deals between friendly states that are asymmetric. G7, NATO, BRIC, etc etc are countries doing what can’t be done by companies.
At the international level, there really isn’t anybody to tell them no. In most OPEC nations, oil productions is controlled by the government, who can sell as much or as little as they want.
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