This illustrates a simple idea in economics: cartels are hard to maintain because participants will look out for their own self-interest.
I don't know the literature, and what assumptions they make in there, but out in the real world the lightbulb cartel lasted from 1924 till 1942 or thereabouts. The keyword to look for is "Phoebus Cartel". Also, recently in the news: the Silicon Valley wage-fixing cartel. They may be hard to maintain, but they do spring up and may exert power while alive.
>In the late 1920s a Swedish-Danish-Norwegian union of companies (the North European Luma Co-op Society) began planning an independent manufacturing centre. Economic and legal threats by Phoebus did not achieve the desired effect, and in 1931 the Scandinavians produced and sold lamps at a considerably lower price than Phoebus.
They are, in fact, difficult to maintain. That doesn't mean impossible, but your chances of maintaining a cartel in a free market drop drastically within the first few years, if not the first few months.
And let's not fail to consider the fact that the economy back then was much less globalized, and therefore much easier to cartelize then it is today.