price fixing and mens rea

I like the nuance you are highlighting, but it seems like you are splitting hairs with your definition of 'price fixing'. You articulated well how no actual communicative collusion is often required for the players to gain the benefit of elevated prices across the board. But your emphasis on labeling the effect as an illusion of price fixing, rather than price fixing is curious. The natural upstream philosophical question is- are there laws against either part of this split hair, and if the laws only apply to one half of the hair, is that for a good reason or a bad reason historically that might be better resolved with a little bit of modern brainstorming.