>> Even so, workers councils aren't that different from unions, are they?
>> Except that they would actually control the means of production - there
>> would be no managers to fight, only an operation to run.
>
>But how *does* that operation get run, precisely? Management involves lots
>of hard work -- planning, scheduling, negotiating with suppliers,
>contractors, customers, etc. Replacing a set of managers with, say, a
>group of factory workers would, by itself, change relatively little;
>they'd be under the same pressures, and might have the same temptation to
>exploit other workers in order to meet their annual target.
A/H spell this out pretty clearly I think. ParEcon would also involve lots of planning, scheduling, negotiation, etc. But replacing managers with factory workers would change things quite a bit. They would not be under the same pressures since they could to a larger degree set their own hours, the pace of work, the times they work, etc. The workplace would be much more democratic. Also, expoitation would be MUCH more difficult in ParEcon, precisely because there wouldn't be any permanent hierarchies. Since you have peer review processes and balanced job complexes, there are lots of mechanisms for potentially exploited workers to assert their rights, and fewer opportunities for people to exploit each other.
Again, what's the alternative? Things have to get run somehow, whether in a capitalist system, a ParEcon economy, or a slave society. Production could get carried out in many of the same ways in all these examples, but the relations between different actors would be much different in terms of power, control, wealth, etc.
Brett