Neither inflation, nor deflation, nor permanent price stability are "normal". Markets are dynamic and are always doing one of the three things: going up, going sideways, going down. The issue is not inflation as a base concept. I think a lot of discussion gets too wrapped up in this. Prices slowly changing over long periods of time tend not to be noticed by the vast majority of people. This is well documented. The real core issue throughout history is when there are rapid and unexpected leaps in the price level (which can technically go either direction) leading to instability and loss of confidence in future prices. This is often caused by a sudden expansion of the money supply (mostly by govt), and is made worse when that expansion goes toward less productive things like financing consumption.