Do you ask for/expect a raise every year? Even if your job responsibilities and workload doesn't change?

It's easy to boil it down and say greed or capitalism but I don't think it is a very reasoned position.

>Prices for goods in Europe in the sixteenth century rose to about four times the level that had prevailed during the preceding three centuries, increasing poverty levels but also raising the profit potential for those who were in a position to exploit an economy that was suddenly based primarily upon money and credit rather than labor and trade. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/worldwide-in...

Not sure if they were fully capitalistic by then but that was a long time ago.

I also know that Japan has had inflation for a long time, reading history about coins and looking up the worth of a mon that would be 10000 to 1 yen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_cash_coins_by...

IMHO, inflation is driven by both greed (not just companies, everyone wants their retirement portfolio to go up) and increased money supply. The USA has a large amount of deficit spending, this is money that we just magic into existence. We have used it recently to try and manage crisis like 2008 GFC and COVID but I don't think that it is a coincidence that after those two events the costs of everything went up.

Worldwide the prevailing economic theory is that deflation is bad, I am not sure but unless we are willing to allow for some deflation you will only every have inflation.