And this fact brings us back to our own more immediate subject—­namely, the power of the few and of the many in the sphere of economic production.  The man of exceptional industrial capacity becomes rich in the modern world by producing goods, or by rendering services, which others consume or profit by, and for which they render him a return.  But, in order that they may take, and render him this return for what he offers them, the goods and the services must be such that the many desire to have them.  All the highest productive ability that has ever been devoted to the business of cheapening and multiplying commodities, or rendering social services, would be absolutely futile unless these commodities and services satisfied tastes or wants existing in various sections of the community.  The eliciting of such wants or tastes depends very often, and in progressive communities usually, on a previous supply of the commodities or services that minister to them—­as we see, for example, in the case of tobacco, of the telegraph, and of the bicycle; but, when once the demands have been elicited, they are essentially democratic in their nature.  Each customer is like a voter who practically gives his vote for the kind of goods which he desires to have supplied to him.  He gives his vote under no compulsion.  He is under the manipulation of no party or wire-puller; and the men by whose ability the goods are cheapened and multiplied are bound to determine their character by the number of votes cast for them.[15]

Thus, while—­so long as the productivity of labour is intensified, as it is in the modern world, by the ability of the few who direct labour—­the labouring majority can never be free in their technical capacity of producers, they are free, and must always remain free, in respect of their tastes as consumers.  In other words, demand is essentially democratic, while supply, in proportion to its sustained and enhanced abundance, is essentially oligarchic.

Now, that demand is essentially democratic, and depends on the tastes and characters of those by whom the demands are made, nobody will be inclined to deny.  But if we turn our attention from society, taken as a whole, to the exceptionally able minority on whom the business of supply depends, we shall find that these men, in their turn, form similarly a small democracy in themselves, and make, as suppliers, their own demands also—­a demand for an economic reward, or an amount of personal wealth, not, indeed, necessarily equal to the amount of wealth produced by them, but bearing a proportion to it which is, in their own estimation, sufficient.  This demand made by the exceptional producer rests on exactly the same basis as does that of the average customer.  It rests on the tastes and characters of the men who make it; and it is just as impossible for the many to decide by legislation that the few shall put forth the whole of their exceptional powers for the sake of one reward, when what they want is another, as it is for the few to make the many buy snuff when they want tobacco, or buy green coats when they want black.[16]