Why can’t the government just set a concrete price for everything (Rent, groceries, etc) and forbid it from ever changing? That would prevent inflation from ever happening, right?
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Some countries do this but generally only for what they consider “essential”. Some control prices for basic foodstuff like milk or wheat/bread. Some countries control fuel prices. A very common one would be things like water and electricity – especially if it is government owned.
The biggest problem is that it is problematic to decide “concrete price”. Set it too low and few producers will make the product. This can be bad for an economy. Second, nearly every product relies on other materials. Say you fix the price of bread but don’t control the price of wheat. So if the price of wheat increases, who would want to make bread at a loss. This effect is even worse if the raw materials are imported since there is no way to fix a price without offering some kind of subsidy.
In short, fixing prices leads to a lot more problems and the more products that have “fixed” prices, the economy tends not to develop as quickly. Many politicians have tried this – and many of these schemes ended badly.
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