Things get trickier

With hundreds of opinions on how to produce

Whenever to produce something at all

Or what to do with the produced things

It can work, yes

In fact there's a million worker cooperative here in spain, all of hem having a say

But they organize themselves into factions

And that slides into representatove democracy

Well direct democracy is really just rep democracy on a very small scale, you would see a ward of a hundred people or less electing a representative whom they can switch out at any time. Direct democracy would be more efficient since the lack of terms results in decisions being made faster than the bureaucracy found in modern rep democracies.

Direct democracy works but only in really small scales, that's the thing

What's the issue with it being on a small scale? A decentralized system would just function as a group of smaller systems working together. Which would solve issues faster rather than the bloated rep democracies we see today.

Well

That's optimistic

I do not trust a group of 100 people say all from the same region to solve their problems on their own and to manage themselves

They'll need diferent types of peoples with different types of skills to actually maybe sustain themselves

Let alone be able to actually even trade with other comunities

If that was the case you might aswell call the region independent

But not for long cause unless they have a good farmer personel they would all starve

And that's without counting how to deal with internal strife

External threats that would want to put down this territory that is neither protected and isn't trading with them

I don't see a reason for why people can't be educated in a direct democracy, they would actually be more educated since people could go back to post-secondary without the threat of debt. Defense could also be sorted out in this manner, not to mention the fact that every commune is protected since everyone has the access, ability, and education to use violence. Defence forces as seen in Rojava are organized in the principle of direct democracy and they have been able to hold out against Turkey.

Well

This "army"

You have 2 options

A decentralised army, everyone making their own moves

Basically easy picks for bigger armies that just need to defeat them individually

Or a centealised comand

But then you have a direct democracy over a lot of people

And thus hundreds of opinions and diferent aproaches

Also you understimate how globalized the world is rn

Regions cannot survive without trading with others

And hopping for a single commune to have enougj personel to produce enough to trade and sustain itself

While also needing personel for mantainence and moving those goods

Numbers do start packing up

If you decide to let every commune be independent and to not trade

Congratulations, you've now made everyone's lifes worse than under capitalism

Communes could trade and should trade with each other. There is no reason for why they wouldn't negotiate with each other into unions of communes. Production would increase (As was seen in anarchist communes during the Spanish Civil War) because more jobs would be dedicated to production. Lots of jobs right now don't make anything useful. Workers in things like advertising, management, investment, and banking could be educated and work towards the production of food and useful items. Because of this reorientation towards production you would also see lower hours.

As for defence, the CNT-FAI was able to organize its forces democratically. They were crushed (like the other centralized armies in Europe) by German manpower. Soviets also played a role in the demise of the CNT-FAI because of their vanguardism.

You don't have to teach me about that

My family fought for them

But i gotta say they really didn't do a great job