There's two hidden assumptions in this short paragraph.
One is that a Parecon society has no ability to reduce complexity. But why not observe the institutions in daily life which do just that? (Take stores and restaurants, for example. I don't constantly haggle food prices or write optimal shopping lists. Stores haggle commodity prices, and predict my consumption habits. The nearby cafeteria takes care of shopping lists and culinary knowledge. Are stores and restaurants disallowed by Parecon?)
The second is a serious difference in approach I find between anarchists and other species of leftie. Anarchists often claim that work is just as fulfilling to humans as consumption; perhaps much more so in the end, as that way lies creation and self-expression. So Chomsky, the "derivative fellow traveller" of anarchism, talks about how "Marx sees the revolutionary more as a frustrated producer, than as a dissatisfied consumer." http://www.pentaside.org/article/chomsky-govt-in-the-future.html
When I speak with people, I get the strong impression that work -- self-managed work under one's own command -- strikes a strong chord with many. They don't want the culture which values consumption above all else. They don't hold humanity in esteem because we're voracious consumers.
> And that balanced job complexes
> stuff sounds hopelessly complex to negotiate.
Maybe, maybe not. But I hear right-wing libertarians say similar things about socialism. And they have the advantage of citing Hayek.
> As I say every time this comes up, I don't see how we can get from
> here to there. I do see how we can introduce more democracy and
> openness to market relations - to socialize the market, as Diane
> Elson put it. That means opening corporate books, introducing more
> worker control, regulating business practices, etc. But the sort of
> top-to-bottom transformation that Parecon represents, given present
> arrangements and consciousness, seems hopelessly utopian (in the
> bad sense).
I expect a Parecon advocate would find your reformist prescriptions perfectly sensible. "Building a new society within the shell of the old."
(But even if Parecon were hopelessly utopian, Polanyi frequently mentioned free-market utopianism, and those guys are still going strong. Christianity has both utopian and self-sacrificing elements, and they're still influential.)
Tayssir