The article clearly describes a study performed in diligence (from the looks of it) which reveals a perhaps serious flaw that permeates (or can permeate) in all markets. The conclusion being that cartels emerge as a product of the system, not as a product of immorality or deceit.
I guess I understand why people would not want to see it put so bluntly (capitalism is flawed. full stop.) but even you in so many words said the same thing. It is in part inherently corrupt and the silent hand of the market is sometimes a sinister one.
The paper is a study of a particular mathematical model and simulation.
The suggested association of the mathematical model to the model of markets (with many suppliers) where the buyer has a "slow reaction time" results in a price that would, in some sense, be analogous to the price generated by cartels.
The implication is likely that such a market doesn't reach the perfectly competitive price, which is what a simpler model that doesn't consider the buyer's reaction time would predict.
Neither the article nor the paper claims that this emergent phenomenon occurs (can occur) in all, or even the majority of, markets.
Quote: "Under certain market conditions, cartels arise naturally without collusion. This raises important questions over how the behavior should be controlled"
Neither the article nor the paper claims that cartels always "emerge" as "a product of the system". No systems were mentioned, and no definition of product was given.
Neither the article nor the paper claims that cartels do not emerge "as a product of immorality or deceit".
It seems plausible that people might not enjoy a misrepresentation of the authors, who did put in effort (authoring such a paper is never done in a night).
Just to make sure, do you agree with the definition I alluded to in my comment (where "correct" means that market prices track intrinsic value, and "flawed" is anything else)?
In any case, we already know that there are cases where capitalism fails, the best-known probably being the monopoly. We even know that there are certain market conditions that encourage these failure modes (for example, economies of scale encourage monopolies and oligopolies). Recognizing another possible failure mode (non-collusive cartels) and the conditions that trigger it doesn't push capitalism over the line from desirable to flawed. Maybe you already believe that capitalism is flawed, but I don't think that this by itself pushes it over the line.
If you read the study, you'd realize the flaw doesn't permeate all markets.
It permeates markets with perfectly inelastic demand (all consumers are obligated to buy), where the sellers all use a particular pricing strategy, and where sellers have considerably better information than buyers (i.e., when K=1, ~60% of price updates must be seller price updates before cartel behavior begins).
I guess I understand why people would not want to see it put so bluntly (capitalism is flawed. full stop.) but even you in so many words said the same thing. It is in part inherently corrupt and the silent hand of the market is sometimes a sinister one.