Okay, like the previus poster, let me take these on one at a time.
I was just curious if these capitalistic and conservative ideals are sinful. Please be respectful.
- Success is great
Yes. When we succeed, we can learn from our temporal success. This is especially true when we succeeded using ethical practices and means. For example, I would for a very successful company. Yet the owners are Catholic; they guide their business and treat their employees in a manner consistent with Catholic morality and social teachings. The result is that the company is very well-respected by our customer and consumers and we have many long-term and faithful employees. (I have worked here for just over 14 years.)
Success achieved via hard work and dedication is to be admired because self-discipline and good work ethic are worthy virtues.
Being wealthy is not inherently bad. In fact, the Lord does bless some with wealth, but that blessing can cut both ways. Just as poverty and suffering can be a test and strengthen people, wealth can also be a test as it is east to fail to properly give alms, help the less fortunate and succumb to the sin of greed and avarice. When someone holds on to Catholic faith they can use their wealth to benefit the Church as well as many charities. Tom Monahan, the president of Dominos Pizza is an excellent example of this. He helped to build Ave Maria University.
Aside from the obvious financial difficulties, failure can be a good. While we can lean from our successes, failure is often a better teacher. In addition, if an idea is genuinely not good, or a business model is not efficient enough to be profitable, then failure
is a good thing as it helps eliminate the inefficient and the undesirable. These lower costs for consumers.
4 A small amount of greed is good (drives innovation and job creation), too much is bad.
I do not believe this is an authentically capitalist or conservative idea. Geed is always bad. However, do not confuse greed, even a small amount of greed, with the desire for a person to be financially successful. Aiming to be financially successful can be a noble and virtuous goal. It can mean that family is provided for, children can be educated, retirement can be comfortable, charities and the Church can be supported to a greater degree, etc. That is not being greedy, that is being sensible.
Then, is a conservative immoral when they feel that welfare should be minimal and focused on the needs of the person? What I mean by minimal and focused on needs is that everybody should be guaranteed food just not expensive foods like beef and everybody doesn’t deserve to live in a house, but in a small trailer or apartment.
Is it sinful to be happy that everybody is guaranteed clean water, bread, a multivitamin and basic health care (what is required to live a full life).
Part and parcel with capitalism is that people are rewarded for working, rewarded more for working harder or smarter, and penalized for not working hard. Many people are motivated to support their families via hard work because their hard work is rewarded. However, if everyone is rewarded, using money from the very wealthy, no matter how hard they work or how lazy they are, the motivation to be productive members of society will erode and, for many, disappear entirely.
So yes, I would say ignoring the very grave and negative social consequences that government guaranteed social programs, especially food water and “spreading the wealth” inherently bring, could arguably be sinful.
Now non of what I have said should be interpreted as me saying that capitalism is the most desirable economic model. Not at all. But any economic model that removes private property rights, the parents ability to oversee and manage the education of their children, removes health care decision from patients+doctors or rations care, forces public funds to pay for abortions, requires coverage for contraceptions or sterilization procedures, legalizes or even requires euthanasia, would inherently immoral and, therefore, evil. That would pretty much include most socialist and all communist economic models.
. I have heard many “conservatives” claim that government welfare should be abolished outright. The position you describe seems moderate and reasonable. Have you heard people call it sinful? On what grounds? Unless you are talking about some of the statements I’ve heard from “conservatives” which seem downright punitive toward the poor (the horrific example of this in practice was the “workhouse” system of the 19th century–these days all anyone remembers are the Catholic “Magdalene laundries,” but this attitude to the poor wasn’t peculiar to Catholics by any means–in fact I’d say that the Catholic Church was far more compassionate than many other institutions in European society at that time). Some folks seem determined to ensure that if we do help the poor, we by golly will keep them miserable so they’ll have an incentive to work hard and get rich like us. I think that is a sinful approach.