[freshhawk]

Hmm, I definitely agree it's entirely due to human behaviour, that's where my confusion came from. I'm confused about how you expect this "meme" to die. It's never going to. It's inherent in any system with a disparity in power between the involved actors if the actors are even remotely free in their choice of actions and even a single actor is willing to act selfishly.

An economic system with the controls in place to stop the Matthew effect would look nothing like a free market.