Listening nodes aren't "checks and balances" on miners. Miners are independent actors. Why no big miner proposes increase of coinbase? Game theory dictates: some more reward in the near term, crash of mistrust in the long term. Game theory, math, protects us from unbounded greed, nothing else. More miners invested in coin, the better this agent will behave. Scaling issue hurted wallet processors the most, miners are pretty much indifferent towards blocksize if ecosystem is growing
my point considers that human greed is in fact yes checked by math and game theory. Since they each bear the risk of their decision it is the perfect smallest unit possible that would have most incentive for good decision making. It would make very small sense for the individual to agree to screw them selves over day after day economically. That is what people mean when they say market forces as I understand them. The ultimate consideration of all things leading to any voluntary decision to buy or not buy for example..