Inflation Is an Entity

conceptual-metaphor Embodied Experience → Economics

Categories: cognitive-science linguistics

What It Brings

Inflation is alive, hungry, and on the move. This is Lakoff and Johnson’s showcase example of ontological metaphor combined with personification — a case where an abstract economic phenomenon (the general increase in price levels) is given the status of a discrete entity with agency, appetite, and physical presence. Once inflation is an entity, we can refer to it, quantify it, identify causes, blame it, and try to fight it.

Key structural parallels:

Entity with agency — “Inflation is attacking the foundation of our economy.” “Inflation has robbed me of my savings.” Inflation acts on people and institutions the way a person or predator does. It robs, attacks, destroys. This personification makes an impersonal process feel intentional, which gives citizens and politicians a target to oppose.
Entity with appetite — “Inflation is eating up our profits.” “Inflation gobbles up savings.” The metaphor gives inflation a hunger that consumes value. This maps neatly onto the felt experience of purchasing power declining — your money is being devoured by something.
Entity with location and motion — “Inflation is creeping up.” “Inflation has gone through the roof.” “We need to bring inflation down.” Inflation moves in space, particularly on a vertical axis (MORE IS UP), and can be chased, cornered, or beaten back.
Entity that can be measured — “Inflation is at 6%.” “The rate of inflation.” Once inflation is a thing, it has properties: size, speed, direction. We can quantify it, graph it, and compare it across countries and time periods. The ontological metaphor underwrites the entire apparatus of economic measurement.
Entity that can be fought — “Combat inflation.” “The war on inflation.” “We must defeat inflation.” The entity metaphor feeds naturally into INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY, which structures policy discourse as a battle. Central bankers become generals; interest rate hikes become weapons.

Where It Breaks

Inflation is not a thing; it is a statistical abstraction — the Consumer Price Index aggregates thousands of individual price changes into a single number. Calling that number an “entity” obscures the fact that inflation is a measurement choice, not a natural kind. Different baskets of goods produce different inflation figures. The entity metaphor makes it seem like there is one real inflation out there, when in practice there are many possible measures, each telling a different story.
Personification assigns blame to the wrong target — if inflation “attacks” and “robs,” then the natural response is to fight inflation directly. But inflation is a symptom, not an agent. The causes are monetary policy, supply shocks, fiscal decisions, and market dynamics. Treating inflation as an adversary can distract from the policy choices that produce it — you fight the fever instead of the infection.
The entity metaphor hides distributional effects — inflation does not affect everyone equally. Debtors benefit from it; creditors are hurt. Asset owners may be insulated; wage earners may not. But “inflation is eating up our profits” treats the damage as universal. The entity attacks “us” — but who is “us”? The metaphor flattens a complex distributional phenomenon into a shared enemy.
Containment language implies control that may not exist — “We need to contain inflation.” “Bring inflation under control.” The entity metaphor implies inflation is something that can be captured and restrained, like an animal or a fire. This overstates the precision of monetary policy instruments and understates the degree to which inflation emerges from millions of independent pricing decisions.
The metaphor makes deflation seem like victory — if inflation is an enemy, then reducing it is winning. But deflation can be as destructive as inflation. The entity metaphor has no natural way to express the idea that the absence of the enemy is also dangerous. Zero inflation is not “peace”; it may be stagnation.

Expressions

“Inflation is eating up our profits” — inflation as a hungry entity consuming value
“Inflation has robbed me of my savings” — inflation as a thief with agency and intent
“We need to combat inflation” — policy response as warfare against an adversary
“Inflation is creeping up” — inflation as an entity with stealthy motion
“Inflation has gone through the roof” — rapid increase as vertical movement through a physical barrier
“Bringing inflation under control” — restraining an entity, as one would an animal or prisoner
“Inflation is out of control” — an entity that has escaped containment
“Runaway inflation” — inflation as a fleeing animal or vehicle without a driver

Origin Story

Lakoff and Johnson use INFLATION IS AN ENTITY as their central example of ontological metaphor in Chapter 6 of Metaphors We Live By. They show how treating inflation as an entity enables an entire discourse: we can refer to it, quantify it, identify a particular aspect of it, see it as a cause, act with respect to it, and perhaps even believe we understand it. The example is strategically chosen because inflation is abstract enough that its entity status is clearly metaphorical, yet the metaphor is so entrenched that most speakers do not notice it.

The example also demonstrates how ontological metaphor shades into personification. “Inflation has attacked the foundation of our economy” gives inflation not just entity status but human-like agency and hostility. Lakoff and Johnson argue that personification is the most obvious form of ontological metaphor, allowing us to comprehend impersonal forces in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities.

References

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By (1980), Chapter 6: “Ontological Metaphors”
Lakoff, G., Espenson, J. & Schwartz, A. Master Metaphor List (1991)
Kovecses, Z. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction (2002) — ontological metaphor and personification as core categories