Economic Democracy

Schweickart's assessment of our current economic system and his proposal of this system economic democracy have really opened my eyes to some novel solutions to the "same old" problems that our economy and workforce seem to suffer through in capitalism. As we've found over the course of this semester, the problem that capitalism seems to have is the need for constant growth, often meaning downsizing and outsourcing, in order to remain competitive in the market. Socialism tried to answer this quintessential problem through the elimination of the market, and simply having the government provide the demand rather than the people. However, in all previous attempts the socialist/communist agenda has failed to function properly for workers. Sure they have jobs, but the quality of their products, and in return their quality of life plummets in such systems.
However, Schweickart's system of economic democracy has some unique answers to these capitalist flaws. These answers come in the way of 3 key ideals. The first ideal is that there is a semi-free market. This market is free in regards to economically equal nations, but high tariffs are placed on lesser developed areas. I think this is a great idea. These protectionist policies serve to protect both the developed nation's workers from fear of job loss to outsourcing, and abuse of cheap third world labor, as the tariff's proceeds are given back to the underdeveloped nation. The second ideal is that the workers own the means of production. This means that workers aren't simply going to work to put in their 40 hours for "the man" and receive a pittance of a paycheck, but they actually have a both a say and a vested stake in the success of the company. With a share of the management and profit sharing, it's been proven the workers will put more effort into the quality of their work, and the company will do better as a whole. The last ideal is that capital and investments from both the government and companies must be invested back into the national market. This essentially satisfies the need for constant growth that a market hungers for, and eliminating some of the hyper mobility of capital. I find that this seems to be the key idea that economic democracy has, and really like the direction it moves the economy.
I do like the ideas behind Schweickart's system of economic democracy, but I think there is a key flaw. He provides no way to switch from our existing capitalist ways into this new system. Sure once in place it can work wonders, but how do we install it? Besides, who knows if once we put the system in place whether or not we will run into flaws just as we do under capitalism?