It seems like everything is always going up in price. Is that because of corporate monopolies or something? Do costs of living get higher as a society becomes more industrialized/advanced?
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I’m not sure there’s an ELI5 way to explain this, but I’ll try. It’s a lot of different factors. It’s kind of tied with inflation.
Housing is a big one, housing is more expensive relative to average and median income than it used to be. That significantly increases the cost of living. It’s also highly regional in nature. Some areas are just more expensive to live in.
Cost of oil. That affects transportation costs, machinery cost, etc. That means cost of clothing goes up, cost of food goes up, and so on. That’s one thing that will basically have downstream effects on everything.
Corporate consolidation. Less competition and the pursuit of ever higher profits means that the cost of some things goes up. Again, that will vary for different sectors of the economy. Want to know whether things rose in price to get more money, look at profit margins. The costs of goods going up for a business means they’ll go up for you even if profit margins don’t go up.
Lack of regulation enforcement, deregulation, and regulatory capture. I am lumping all of those into one since they have the same effect. They let businesses get away with stuff they wouldn’t have gotten away with before.
Unintended effects of regulations, bad regulations. I am a firm believer in regulations. Most industries have shown they cannot be trusted to do the right thing. That being said, poorly written regulation can also have a negative effect on costs by putting unnecessary burdens (and therefore costs) on businesses.
Public services. I am a big fan of having running water from the city, sewers, libraries, etc. However, those also cost money and we pay for it through taxes. Same for maintenance of those services. The price of maintaining those services go up, you can expect your taxes and by extension cost of living to go up. Even if you’re renting, you’re going to pay for it through rent increases.
As for your second question:
>Do costs of living get higher as a society becomes more industrialized/advanced?
Usually, yes, if only by the fact that you will get more access to services that do cost money to maintain.
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