or mabye we should be more honest and consider that maybe this is a way for the USA government to fill its coffers back up?

(rapping on another comment saying that there's a chance this is a way for the USA government to sell the 'manufacture capacity' that 3M is to other "greener" owners)

now that I type this out, I realize that this is perfectly consistent with the behavior of empires. the realization that the alleged 'pax romana' (stability and 'peace' for the roman empire) was built on stealing from 'barbaric' tribes and selling stuff to more 'civilized' owners in Rome.

If the government were somehow able to capture the entire market cap of 3M (without any execution slippage, which is obviously an unrealistic assumption), it would be enough to run the federal government for a little over 3 days...

As long as the laws and their enforcement are just, a theoretical government profit motive doesn't seem like a bad thing.

But it's hard to see how the particular people who brought this case to bear would be motivated by the small slice of the increase in federal funding that would redound to them. And it's not consistent with most of the government's behavior -- it doesn't spend as many resources extracting judgments from big corporations as would be likely if its profit motive loomed large.

no, you gotta be much more deep in your reasoning this "high" up

philosophically, at this height, the principle of "justice" is to not so simple... what does it even mean "to be just"? may as well say "be good" but the point is that the issue is good for whom?

the concept is "Empire"... USA government is the empire? aside question: can there ever exist multiple "empires"? monotheistic~ally speaking?

uff... My English prose is answering its own questions... I am no longer deeply disturbed by this phenomenon... but it's not something scientifically real so it still shakes me.

Philosophers seem to delight in the idea that the common good is hard to define. I'm an economist. I don't see much wiggle room. The wiggle room that exists is:

(1) How much do you care about whom? In particular, do you care equally about everyone, or are you a jerk?

(2) How do you weight the relative value of things like money, health, longevity, entertainment?

(3) At what rate does the marginal utility of such things diminish?

Okay maybe that's a lot of wiggle room. Still, under any reasonable set of weights, making millions of people sick is not worth the money 3M made.

Ther is a danger of confusing cynicism with honesty.

It is imperative to control material incentives for all entities, both individuals and organizations. Entities will pursue incentives; money is no exception. Therefore, if we have designed a government so that it profits from protecting citizens from the ravages of corporate greed... that still counts as a good system.