This is a reply to the workerscontrol.net article "Spectrum, Trajectory and the Role of the State in Workers’ Self-Management", especially on its treatment of the parecon model.
The history of worker management of Barcelona's transit system during the revolution and civil war is an illustration of the ability of workers to directly manage the industries where they work.
"The difference between councils and trade unions is that, while the latter lose their functions in a decaying capitalism, the former become a prefiguration of the organisation of socialist society."
Some currents argue that the experience of small-scale self-management under capitalism is useful preparation. However, self-management is impossible without real socialist democracy.
Britain in the 1970s was a period of crisis and polarisation. Workplace closure led to resistance by workers, which defined the relations between capital and labour for subsequent decades.