I don't know about the rest of the planet during World War 2, but in America the Roosevelt administration created a price control board. During the period of high inflation during the Nixon years, the government created a price control board.
It goes without saying we, meaning all of us, live in an increasingly interdependent world. No man is an island, so to speak, in the sense that no man is capable of being totally self sustaining, despite all that nonsense on the TV programs I don't watch about people living alone in Alaska.
People who have always lived there have always lived in groups.