I was having a discussion with someone I know and I pointed out that one's neighbor has no obligation to give you money or assistance if, for example, your kid is sick and needs some medicine. Of course, I think most people would help if they could anyways, but I've found that there is some mystical notion among many people that your neighbor actually does have that obligation. What is the logical justification for such a belief? What is the philosophical justification for it?
None. The justification could only be "that makes me live more comfortably, so I am entitled to it." This (in its most basic form, initiation of aggression) is what libertarianism fights (anarcho-libs, that is).
I don't believe there is any either, at least not really. I think the craziest thing about it is that people actually believe that they have the moral high ground when they espouse this kind of belief. In fact, it's an incredibly twisted belief system which posits that one is actually entitled to the property of others. The reason that this is so twisted and perverse is that what one is in fact saying by claiming some obligation from another is that that other person's life, through their time and labor, actually belongs to another before they have even decided it to be so.
On another note, related to property, we talked about mining in Africa. They were arguing that it was wrong for Europeans to trade food to the Africans for labor in the mines or something else. They asserted that the Europeans, by claiming property, actually cut off native people from any possible source of food. Does anyone know if this is true? They also claimed that some tribes have NO sense of property. I find this absolutely absurd since they have at least a sense of property regarding their clothes, weapons, food, and shelters.
The fact that it can be instituted, is instituted, people like it enough not to openly revolt against in any relevant way, and the fact that when the institution is taken away people seem to cause major upheavel is the justification.
The fact that the institution really can't be rationally calculated is irrelvant, if it collapses due to the fact that it is nonsense due to the fact that it goes against every thought one can have in biology / logic/ productivity, that is it's "unjustiifaction". Hopefully people will realize with a bit more clarity eventually what is going on if that system does collapase, when they realize their language is all mixed and tangled up with gibberish - these things take time, but it idoes seem to be the tendency of things to get rid of nonsense in the human conscience.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
They were arguing that it was wrong for Europeans to trade food to the Africans for labor in the mines or something else. They asserted that the Europeans, by claiming property, actually cut off native people from any possible source of food.
Now that's contradictory! Please let me know if you don't see it.
Also, Europeans can only claim it if it has not been homesteaded by the natives. It likely was not, so Europeans can claim it. How does claiming a mine cut off the natives from food? The natives lived well enough before the mine.
They also claimed that some tribes have NO sense of property.
This may be true to an extent (to which you then described), though it more likely simply appears that way on the surface. The people retain their rights to property, yet have a sort of societal contract whereby they share it amongst each other (though I am not a fan of societal contracts, this appears voluntary, albeit unspoken and unwritten).
cut off native people from any possible source of food
If what they mean is that the mines which are claimed are physically in the way of their food/water source, then AnCap still solves through easements. If the natives used passageways through the mines before, they have claims to them even after the property is bought. Problem solved.
Unless the water source itself was bought. In that case is there any sort of "easement" to water (more of freedom to use it even though it has appeared to have been claimed as property)? Because while the land where the lake rests may have been claimed as property, there is still an easement to the lake and a little bit into it. I'd like to know. But besides this little caveat, AnCap theory solves.
Also, "social contract theory" is not quite the way to put this issue. Though there are a lot of parallels.
If you are, then why would anyone argue about it?
If it is an obligation, either you will be arrested or God will smite you or something.
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And if he is just trying to convince you to help him, then you will either do it or not. It's not up to him.