The interference of policies on these associations of entrepreneurs of the same trade varied.
It ranged from a mere decision to establish a cartel or to maintain an existing one, to a strict state control.
In recent times (2007), the economic-historian Jeffrey R. Fear took this stance of the “exception to the rule” that would not contradict the general nature of these organizations.
[3] The cartel-historian Holm Arno Leonhardt has positioned himself more differentiated in 2013: Forced cartels that were embedded in a totalitarian planning economy or were by other means unable to realize their own will, should be regarded as organs or appendages of another system.
[4] Thus, “compulsory cartels” without a permanent political influence could indeed constitute real “cartels”, while others being under strict control acted mainly as servants of an alien will.