Is it wrong or sinful to accuse others of selfishness when they are a competitor?


In sports, you owe it to your competition to give it all you have.  If not, you diminish the thrill of victory.  In business, you only win for yourself when, in the eyes of the buyer, you are wanting to serve him better than your competitors are.


In a free market economy it is those who serve their fellow man best that succeed.  In short, if Christians believe we should do unto others as we would have done to us, in truly serving our fellow man, then Christians realize that the ONLY moral economic system is the free market.

No, but if you tell me so-and-so is selfish, all you have done is told me your opinion.  The only thing I would be wondering about is why it is, exactly, you are jealous?


If their competition can't compete, then, yes, they deserve to go out of business since the market has determined their good or service is inferior. 

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In the eyes of the only people with an opinion that matters, those of the customer, they DO serve best.  The free market system is the ONLY economic system that is not a gross violation of the laws of God, imo, because all others are based upon, to some measure, the initiation or threat of force or fraud.

If you were so worked up about it you would do something about it yourself and possibly remember to not be a gossip.


If I truly loved my neighbor as myself and I saw his business was not competitive, then I wouldn't do anything to stand in the way of his finding an endeavor in which he can compete.

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I'm assuming it is the best because it is based upon transactions occurring only after both sides of the transaction consider it in their own best interests.  All other systems are based upon force and fraud.  If you and someone else want to do a deal, that's your business.  It would be a violation of God's law if I stuck an unwelcome nose in it.

Depends on what you include in selfish. In an extreme view, yes, being selfish is sinful. In a more moderate view, caring for oneself isn't sin.


If you are out to destroy someone else, yes. If you simply make the best product and ship it around the world, no.

If my intent is to give you the best quality at the lowest price, and you buy it rather than someone else's, it's a matter of the market.

The question is not whether some businesses succeed and others don't. It has much more to do with who you are.

Jesus was a carpenter. Should he have not been a carpenter because there were other carpenters in the vicinity? What if new ones started up and began depleting his customer supply? They all had to eat. What if he did better work? Should he not be allowed the reward of more customers and higher pay for that better work?

I think his whole philosphy would be do the best you can at your job and find your niche. If there were a number of carpenters in his home town, and he didn't have the natural skill to provided a niche for himself in the market above the other carpenters, and all the work was taken. He'd be silly to try to be a carpenter in that place. However if he could find a niche by doing something different or better, then his customers would benefit as well as him.

I think the basic principle is pretty simple. The bible says in proverbs that if a man won't work, then he shouldn't eat. It also has a lot to say on paying your workers fairly and promptly.

Everyone needs to work. And everyone needs to eat. It's just finding a system where opportunities are open for everyone. Cutting someone elses throat in business is of course unethical and unchristian. But an open market gives a place for everybody to find a niche for themselves. And competition keeps that market operating at a certain standard. Take it away and people lose incentive and can start being parasites on other peoples hard work, or just give out shoddy products because they can get away with it.

In the west in the past, trade operated under guilds with strict rules and leadership. It was actually an excellent system because it keep the market in a particular field from being oversaturated and was able to police its quality and the work ethics of the guild members. Have a member producing shabby products and it reflected on the whole guild, and ultimatly its leaders. The encouraged everyone to work hard and gave a collective pool for skills to be increased and shared.

Life in the global market is a little more complicated now though.  However people deserve financial reward if they work hard or do a good job. To take away that right is to strike at the very heart of a nations economy, because you're basically preventing people from being fairly paid for fair labour.