More than that, inflation seems to coexist quite happily with a decrease in political power for the capitalist classes and an increase in power for everyone else.

It's not until you get hyperinflation that everyone loses. But hyperinflation != inflation.

In the media, 'inflation' was always the word used as a substitute for 'don't be greedy and claim more than your fair share of the wages and salary pie.'

And when we had epic inflation in the 70s in the UK, 'everyone knows' it was caused by greedy unions, and oil price shocks were incidental to the point of being irrelevant.

In fact, inflation cannot be caused by bankers or corporations, by definition. So when the British energy industry is hiking prices, or when the BoE and the government are deliberately trying to create a property bubble, or when supermarkets keep prices artificially high, that's not inflation - that's an unavoidable and entirely understandable increase in consumer prices.

As far as mainstream narratives are concerned, it's only when workers ask for more money that inflation happens.