legitimising criticism

I've slowly started writing my paper on the anthropological assumptions in the discourse on solidary economy. Writing papers is a funny thing, especially in philosophy/ theory. I usually have the feelings that my brain is not powerful enough to organise the concepts and levels of analysis in any meaningful way - which is why it took me so long to eventually get down to writing. At the same time though, yesterday as I was formulating my thesis, I experienced again this strange impression that what needs to be written exists somewhere outside of me, and I simply need to fight with the disorder in my head to find IT. Obviously, there is no such objective universal text that everybody would have access to and write if she/he strained herself enough - no transcendental text available to higher thinkers. All the same, as I wrote and realised what I wanted to write, I felt like a sculptor discovering as his hands move what he was meant to sculpt. And ignore the kitschiness of this metaphore. Or rather, ignore the whole metaphore and that I ever said anything.

The anthropological assumptions in solidary economy... You may be wondering what by jove may hide behind such a topic. And rightly so.
Solidary economy has emerged over the past year in part of the German altermondialist movement as a term to oppose to capitalism, without using terms such as socialism or communism, whose meaning the mainstream think they know but don't, and thus associate with entirely different concepts (Totalitarianism, stalinism, control...) than originally meant (equality, freedom, respect, fair repartition of wealth...). So there's a linguistic fight linked to the term, but it also fits in with a more general mood in altermondialist movements; a desire to SHOW, to make visible, that there are alternatives to capitalism, and that we do not have to follow the logic of profits and destruction. Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis' The Take is another example of these efforts to answer the question "if not capitalism, what then?" (which in a way seems as absurd as the question "if not an economic system based on slavery, what then?").

What I find interesting in any attempt to defend or criticise a world vision and a way of organising society are the basic assumptions, the premises that stand at the root of the vision. And anthropological assumptions - i.e. assumptions on what humans are, what motivates their actions, what their needs are - are at the root of all premises. These premises are usually not discussed, they only float in the background. It's unclear where they exactly come from, how they evolve in a person. If you happen to share the unsaid premises of a text, you will find that its content resonates within you. Critics of capitalism for instance will often point out among other its "inhumane" character. This immediately opens up the field for a series of questions: what is inhumane about it, how could a man-made system be inhumane, what would a humane system look like? More broadly: what does the author think human needs are, and which system would cover them? And also: What are the anthropological assumptions made in relation to the present system and to the better system, and how do these fit? I.e. is the Man we have in capitalism the same we have in a solidary system?

Before I even get that far, I first have to identify what the discourse around solidary economy is based on as regards
1- the anthropological assumptions related to the present system
2- what universal human needs are and how they can be covered
3- the anthropological assumptions used to justify the possibility and credibility of another system

And this is what I am trying to do. Except instead I'm writing an entry about it, which isn't entirely a waste of time as it helps me clarify my ideas - although I do find it difficult to express these in anything other than German.