Justice Quote by Charles James

Antitrust, in Charles James's telling, isn’t a vibe or a moral posture; it’s a piece of legal engineering with a job description. The line lands with the clipped confidence of someone trying to drag a debate back from abstraction to mechanics: remedies aren’t trophies for righteous prosecutors or symbolic scoldings of big business. They’re supposed to do two things, and only two things: repair the damage already done and make it harder to do again.

The phrasing matters. “Standard formulation” signals insider talk, a nod to the technocratic consensus that antitrust people recite like doctrine. It’s also a defensive move. When enforcement turns political - as it often does during moments of concentrated corporate power, populist backlash, or high-profile tech cases - James offers a stabilizer: judge the outcome by its function, not its theater.

“Cure past violations” borrows from medicine, implying diagnosis, evidence, and proportional intervention. That metaphor quietly rejects punitive excess: you don’t amputate because you’re angry; you operate because it works. Then comes the real tell: “prevent their recurrence.” That’s the forward-looking ambition that separates antitrust from mere punishment. It’s not about declaring a company guilty and moving on; it’s about redesigning incentives, structures, and market rules so the same conduct becomes unprofitable or impossible.

“That’s what antitrust is all about” is the rhetorical shove at the end: a claim of purity that doubles as critique. If your remedy doesn’t change the market’s future, you didn’t enforce antitrust - you just performed it.