Employment Afforded to Labour Does NOT Depend on the Purchasers, But on the Capital

[Demand for commodities is not demand for labour]. We now pass to a fourth fundamental theorem respecting Capital, which is, perhaps, oftener overlooked or misconceived than even any of the foregoing. What supports and employs productive labour, is the capital expended in setting it to work, and not the demand of purchasers for the produce of the labour when completed. Demand for commodities is not demand for labour. The demand for commodities determines in what particular branch of production the labour and capital shall be employed; it determines the direction of the labour; but not the more or less of the labour itself, or of the maintenance or payment of the labour. These depend on the amount of the capital, or other funds directly devoted to the sustenance and remuneration of labour.

—John Stuart Mill, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. 2, bk. 1, Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 78.