“Duke Collective” grad students collectivize their wages

I think that could work because on a small scale there's a strong social pressure to not be "that asshole" who spends the significant portion of the pool's income. However if this scales up, who knows what would happen? You get just one asshole, suddenly you need an enforcer, that enforcer needs to be watched too, etc...

Academia - where the competition is so brutal, because the stakes are so small.

Go to med school, not grad school.