On December 21, 2022, the Center for Comparative Law, University of Law, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) held a discussion on "The role of the state in society - What is the limits". The discussion was held in Room 2 - G3 building.

 

The discussion was attended by Dr. Tran Kien - Director of the Center for Comparative Law; Dr. Nguyen Van Quan - Lecturer at the Faculty of Theory and History of State and Law; Dr. Dinh Tuan Minh – Research Center for Market Solutions for Socio-Economic Issues (MASSEI) and some other reputable experts. Besides, the discussion was pleased to welcome a large number of students from the VNU University of Law.

 

Dr. Dinh Tuan Minh presented the presentation on Justifying the existence of the state

In the first presentation, Dr. Dinh Tuan Minh presented the presentation on Justifying the existence of the state based on the argument of the 'Invisible Hand' and the limit of the state (minimum state) according to the theory of Robert Nozick. Accordingly, we are in a state of free-market nature, where individuals have natural rights. Therefore, if some don't act ethically, other individuals pay a fee for what Nozick calls a security company. These companies offer security packages like a commodity in a market economy. Security companies will eventually develop into dominant security companies (superior security companies in the territory). Then the dominant security company will become an ultra-minimal state. An ultra-minimal state where protection is still purchased as goods has a monopoly on force in certain geographical areas. The ultra-minimal state will evolve into the (legitimate) minimal state, as these companies provide a "re-distribution" of protection to a few individuals (who are not clients of the ultra-minimal state) within its territory by collecting taxes from clients of the ultra-minimal state. Nozick considers this evolution of security companies to state is important because it would provide a moral justification for state legitimacy.

 

Dr. Nguyen Van Quan

In the following presentation, Dr. Nguyen Van Quan made some comments and expressed his views from a legal perspective on the presentation of Dr. Dinh Tuan Minh, according to him, the good point of the minimal state model is that it upholds the natural rights of people, however, in many cases, if we overemphasize the minimal state, it will not be effective to promote the power of the state in specific contexts, for example in difficult circumstances such as wars and epidemics, or promote the state's ability to "pave the way". Especially, for countries like Vietnam, it is necessary for the state to "pave the way" by learning from the experiences of countries with similar starting points like Korea and Japan. However, it is clear that in the state-based development model, it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice some individual rights in a specific period to overcome a difficult period and then proceed with the democratization process.

 

In the academic atmosphere, the discussion also had the participation of other reputable experts and scholars. After more than 2 hours, the seminar took place successfully.