Machines that improve farming efficiency are good things, assuming that there are no mitigating externalities. As for the process for developing them:
Members of the workers’ council on the farm think that new machinery will improve their efficiency, and they have an idea as to what is needed. Alternatively, the idea may come from a factory/workshop elsewhere. The decision to develop these combines is made via consensus, or whatever other process the council uses, to ensure that all voices can be heard, including those often marginalized by capitalism, the state, etc. Their motivation is so that their own work will be more productive and efficient, for their own benefit and for the benefit of those who eat their produce. If they need to raise funds, they can see if this is possible from their members, and if their practices have removed the upward redistribution of wealth common in more hierarchical systems, they might have the funds. If they need to solicit more from outside, these days they can crowdsource it. As for the trade-offs and other decisions that can arise, they can follow the same pattern.
But they are evidently unwilling to do so, partly due to the visibility, solidarity, and good will that the Zapatistas have built up over the past 20 years. A liberal democracy, or even the more illiberal one that Mexico was recently, is unwilling to take the steps that Franco and Stalin took. In fact, it’s not just liberal capitalist democracies; in Spain the POUM and the left side of the Socialists were anarcho-friendly, or at least anarcho-tolerant. Had the Communists been independent of Moscow, they would not have been much less likely to screw with the anarchists. Now, that infighting isn’t why Franco won, but that’s beside the point. Different political contexts offer very different opportunities.
Yugoslavia was torn apart, in large part from without. The government foolishly/ignorantly got in debt to the IMF, and the resulting neoliberal reforms tore at the fabric of society, leading to an increased prominence for the kinds of extremism you mention. A minority of hellbent ethnic nationalists can change enough minds to cause a lot of trouble, especially when they’re getting help from, say, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other actions from Washington, London, Brussels, Bonn/Berlin, Paris…
Anarchist-minded folks in and around the Balkans know damn well how terrible it is that we have these artificial constructs to keep us divided. Hell, even those who thought that all the Southern Slavs should be in one nation-state were terribly disappointed, to put it mildly. There were many mixed families, some people called themselves “Yugoslav” as their ethnic identity on censuses/surveys, and there had been talk of including the Bulgarians some day. It’s not like the majority of the population was participating in the violence, like one of those Hollywood bar fights where people begin assaulting the person they were chatting with amiably moments before.
Not the largest. Infighting – a long history of animosity between the various ethnic groups had a lot more to do with it. There really was no love loss between the Serbs and the Croats.
Although what the fuck all this has to do with some stupid troll on twitter, I have no idea.
I’ll ignore the “all voices can be heard” and come back to it later.
Ok, they made the decision to create a combine (which has never been built before).
Who is going to build it?
How did those people gain experience with engineering and manufacturing?
Did a workers’ council previously decide that some people should be organized in a group to be trained in engineering and manufacturing?
If so, how did they decide how big that group should be? (obviously the group is a drain on resources until they provide future benefit when it should be a net gain, but those calcs are not easily quantified in advance).