Golden Rule: The Main Argument That Is

¶ … Golden Rule: The main argument that is evident in Hayek's book on The Constitution of Liberty basically revolves around freedom and its value to a person, the society, and overall civilization. The possibility of progress in each of these areas is seemingly impossible because of lack of freedom of action in particular. Hayek uses liberty or freedom interchangeably to state that contemporary civilization is in crisis since the Western nations have lost faith in liberty principles.

Generally, liberty basically requires that the compulsion of some by other people in the society to be lessened as much as possible. While one of the main functions of the government is to protect people from coercing others, the government must also be prevented from the use of coercion improperly. In his early discussion about progressive taxation, Hayek states that the notion of interpersonal comparability of utilities has been primarily abandoned.

However, many policymakers and ordinary individuals still think that rich people gain less utility than poor people from income gains of similar magnitude. Therefore, the main question is whether the Golden Rule should be abandoned because it enjoins people to consult their own preferences when doing unto others. In answering the question, there are several aspects to consider as stated by the author in relation to individual responsibility and liberty.

Since the human individual is the being that thinks, chooses, and acts, the concept of liberty effectively applies to such an individual. As a result, freedom must be described in light of individuals. Therefore, a free society cannot exist without free people since it requires the liberty of everyone. The idea of progressive taxation focuses on redistributing wealth more effectively to an extent that the scope of redistribution could be very restricted. Consequently, redistribution through progressive taxation has developed to be nearly universally accepted as just.

Regardless of whether the principle is combined with the welfare state or not, progressive taxation is currently the main means of redistributing incomes. As a result, it's the major source of governmental arbitrariness and democratic irresponsibility. Despite being the main source of redistributing incomes, the idea of interpersonal comparability of utilities under this principle has been generally abandoned.

The concept of interpersonal comparability of utilities has been largely ignored because of the principle of lessening marginal utility efficiently applies to income that entails all the advantages an individual obtains from the use of his resources (Hayek, p. 309). Moreover, taxing rich people at high marginal rates based on their wealth have minimal significant impacts on their well-being while the transfer of wealth to the poor will significantly enhance their well-being.

Even though interpersonal comparability has been largely ignored or denied, the Golden Rule should not be abandoned on the basis of making people to consult their individual preferences when doing unto others. This is primarily because the idea of the Golden Rule is that it's a foundation for moral action and criteria for evaluating moral consequences and quality of laws. Therefore, the Golden Rule is basically a principle of fairness that should be detached from behavior originating from the desires of recipients or agents.

The other factor in defense of the maintenance of the Golden Rule is avoiding any attempts to.