Could a mutual based economy be viable?

[Seneca]

I have a hard time imagining a worker's cooperative efficiently managing a continent-spanning rail network. Seeing as rail is the only method by which coal (crucial to the US electric grid) and chlorine (required for water purification) is transported, such a decentralized system would quickly become a cluster.

The only way I can envision fully decentralized economic systems working is within an extremely decentralized political system. This is to say, smaller societies with niether far-reaching trade networks nor the technological advances which come with centralization (say, for instance, railroads). Of course one can advocate for a technically simpler society, that is a position I respect, but the people who typical advocate for full decentralization and economic organization based on the cooperative typically want to keep their smartphones and are happy to hand-wave the inconsistency.

Of course, it is also possible to reorganize economic life along a network of cooperatives within a national framework. David Schweickart made serious contributions to this school of thought with his book After Capitalism. However, the society envisioned by Schweickart is still organized around a centralized state which directs public investment in accordance with the will of the people, building off the liberal idea that a state can be truly democratic or representative of popular will. This of course is antithetical to the original, anarchist mutualism as developed by Proudhon and others.

My perspective is that mutualism is incompatible with the contemporary project of progress, as defined in terms of technological advance and consumption. This does not invalidate mutualism as a theory, but I find it is an implication that most people are uncomfortable with.

[Seneca]

Yes, of course. Just not with the State still existing.

Also I'd like to point out to the above post that in such a large situation such as the railways a more centralized form would take place with recallable delegates dealing with the every day planning of the co-op.

And the anarchist confederation is not a state how, exactly?

[Seneca]

Yes, of course. Just not with the State still existing.

Also I'd like to point out to the above post that in such a large situation such as the railways a more centralized form would take place with recallable delegates dealing with the every day planning of the co-op.

And the anarchist confederation is not a state how, exactly?

Read a fycking book.

Why so angry? And really, the Conquest of Bread isn't all it's cracked up to be. Have you read yourself, or did you just get the sparknotes version from your comrades?