The Last and the First
Our Lord said, “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Mt 12:16) And, clarifying what he meant, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mk 9:35) Are the rich people who are successful businessmen and entrepreneurs first on this earth or last? A naive answer is that they are first, and that’s true, but only if we mean first in achievement or impact they made on the world. But in another sense they are clearly last, because they have created and are continuing to create much value for the consumers, while themselves refraining from spending all of their cash. They are humble servants of the public, but they themselves do not avail themselves of the fruits of social cooperation to the greatest possible extent, e.g., by dying broke. One doesn’t eat dollar bills. Normally, their money goes to finance productive activities, pay wages, and create goods for the consumers, which the businessmen themselves do not bid away from the less prosperous, thereby keeping prices low. To repeat the Mises quote found here, “the clerks and workers who boast of their moral superiority deceive themselves and find consolation in this self-deception. They do not admit that they have been tried and found wanting by their fellow citizens, the consumers.” (Human Action, 314)
Thus, those who have served their fellow man by taking an active part in building a civilization while themselves being at least somewhat ascetic should be glorified here and will for sure be glorified in the hereafter.
It may be true that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt 19:24) But the same holds for smart people, gifted people, great artists, political leaders, etc. As Aquinas writes, “Science and anything else conducive to greatness, is to man an occasion of self-confidence, so that he does not wholly surrender himself to God. The result is that such like things sometimes occasion a hindrance to devotion; while in simple souls and women devotion abounds by repressing pride. If, however, a man perfectly submits to God his science or any other perfection, by this very fact his devotion is increased.” (ST, II-II, 82, 3, ad 3)
Entrepreneurial foresight and cunning are perfections; insofar as a person who has become rich has not spent all the profits of his company on himself but, for example, plowed them back into other businesses and finally contributed to philanthropic causes, he has not received his reward in full and is due for a reward from the Father (Mt 6:2-4).