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.