Labor costs have been shrinking for years, much more drastically so since the mid 1970's. This is also supported by data about effective wage stagnation (approximate 6% growth over the last 35 years, most of that going to the top quintile)
Regarding your original assertion about rising prices - that may be true to some degree if we're talking about consumables, but you could argue that some of the current welfare systems are doing the same thing.
> Labor _costs_ are now very high, high enough that I think prices would have to rise significantly
Your assertion is not supported by data: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=2Xa
Labor costs have been shrinking for years, much more drastically so since the mid 1970's. This is also supported by data about effective wage stagnation (approximate 6% growth over the last 35 years, most of that going to the top quintile)
Regarding your original assertion about rising prices - that may be true to some degree if we're talking about consumables, but you could argue that some of the current welfare systems are doing the same thing.