Large Catechism: Crooked Business Practices (LC I 303-310)

In common trade, one carefully slips something out of another’s hand, so that the latter must watch out. Or one person surprises and cheats another in a matter where he sees advantage and benefit for himself. Then the person who was cheated, perhaps on account of distress or debt, cannot regain or redeem the property without damage. The other person gains the half or even more. Yet this property must not be considered as taken by fraud or stolen, but honestly bought. Here they say, “First come, first served,” and “Everyone must look to his own interest, let another get what he can.” Who can be so smart to come up with all these ways in which one can get many things into his possession by such believable arguments? The world does not consider this wrong and will not notice that the neighbor is placed at a disadvantage by this, by sacrificing what he cannot spare without harm. Yet no one wishes for someone to do this to himself. From this we can easily see that such devices and arguments are false.