… is from page 258 – which is in the chapter entitled “Consumers’ Sovereignty” – of the 1990 Transaction Publishers reprint of W.H. Hutt’s 1936 book, Economists and the Public:
As a ‘consumer’, each directs. As a ‘producer’, each obeys.
This relationship is essential for markets to work in ways that improve the living standards of the masses. Yet too many government intrusions – including tariffs and occupational-licensing restrictions – are meant to reverse this relationship; they are meant to make the producer the commander and the consumer the servant obliged to obey.