Note 9 — Chapter III · WAGES NOT DRAWN FROM CAPITAL, BUT PRODUCED BY THE LABOR.
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Industry is limited by capital.... There can be no more industry than is supplied with materials to work up and food to eat. Self-evident as the thing is, it is often forgotten that the people of a country are maintained and have their wants supplied not by the produce of present labor, but of past. They consume what has been produced, not what is about to be produced. Now, of what has been produced a part only is allotted to the support of productive labor, and there will not and cannot be more of that labor than the portion so allotted (which is the capital of the country) can feed and provide with the materials and instruments of production.—John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book I, Chap. V, Sec. I.