The Saint-Simonians, on the other hand—and in this matter their distinction has met with the hearty approval of every socialist—think it better to regard it as between workers on the one hand and idlers on the other, or between workers and capitalists, to adopt the cramped formula of a later period. The worker’s is the general interest; the particular interest is that of the idler who lives at the former’s expense. “We have on several occasions,” writes Enfantin, “pointed out some of the errors in the classification adopted by most present-day economists. The antithesis between producer and consumer gives a very inadequate idea of the magnitude of the gap that lies between the various members of society, and a better differentiation would be that which would treat them as workers and idlers.”[503] The difference in the point of view naturally results in an entirely different conception of social organisation. Economists think that society ought to be organised from the point of view of the consumer and that the general interest is fully realised when the consumer is satisfied. Socialists, on the contrary, believe that society should be organised from the standpoint of the worker, and that the general interest is only fully achieved when the workers draw their full share of the social product, which is as great as it possibly can be.[504] There is one last element of difference which is very important. Classical writers made an attempt to reduce the apparent disorder of individual action within the compass of a few scientific laws. By the time the task was completed so struck were they with the profound harmony which they thought they had discovered that they renounced all attempts at amelioration. They were so satisfied with the demonstration which they had given of the way in which a spontaneous social force, such as competition, for example, tended to limit individual egoism and to complete the triumph of the general interest that they never thought of inquiring whether the action of these forces might not be rendered a little less harmful or whether the mechanism might not with advantage be lubricated and made to run somewhat more smoothly.