runescape trade unions? - just an idea

Recently while learning about trade unions in my economics class, I thought of a way the concept of trade unions could be applied to the Runescape economy.

As we probably all know, Runescape's economy is pretty crap. Everything is decreasing in value as more and more goods are added into circulation, and less and less is taken out, which means that both legitimate players and botters get less GP for their labour.

This COULD be fixed by introducing the concept of trade unions; where everybody agrees on a higher price than the market price. For example, if everybody agrees to buy and sell nature runes at 200gp instead of 130gp.

BUT a problem with this idea is that not everbody will stick to this price; as some people will try to undercut the agreed price (eg, try to sell nature runes at 190 each) in order to sell off their goods. This is where my idea unfortunately falls apart.

BUT I've thought of a work-around to this problem. I'm sure we're all familiar with runescape 'companies' who have 'employees' that sell certain goods (eg, runes). What if there was a company that would buy ALL runes at a fixed price (eg, 200gp per nature rune), no matter the quantity. All runecrafters would automatically start selling to this company so that they get more GP, as they're guaranteed a sale for their product at a high price. Buyers would have to buy from this company, too, as they would hold a virtual monopoly on that type of good. The company would be able to charge a small profit, and voila. Everybody's happy; buyers, sellers and company employees.

Any idiot could poke holes in this idea. It would probably require hundreds of billions to work efficiently. And it's only an idea; it probably wouldnt work in practice.



I'm not trading at all, or starting a 'company'; I just want to know what you guys think about my little idea. ^_^

 

Theorically the idea is alright & smart, but i'm pretty sure it won't happen even if you try hard because it's way too risky.

 

This is also known as a merchanting clan. Problem with that is that there is no way to control and make sure everyone stays loyal to the plan.

 

but the goal of merch clan is to make the price rise and dump all their items when it reachs a decent price. The idea here is not to make price rise but stable.

 

Trading is instant and free in runescape across the GE. There are no fees or waiting times for it.

This makes undercutting inevitable as people would rather have sales and money than to hold on to some item because some organization is telling them too.

Also, there is no incentive for a company to agree to buy all nature runes at 200 gp like you suggest. There is no reason why people would all of a sudden get together and decide to start donating to RC bots like that.

This idea would fail very quickly

 

It might work but all the people buying the nature runes would vote for a lower price

 

I agree.
If there was less people playing RS (like back in 2004 or something) and there was no bot, it WOULD be possible, but nowadays it's impossible.