actually, communes and communities scale amazingly well, if they can work mostly independant of eachother.
a cell like structure is actually extremely common in business and government alike.
in governments, they are usually hierarchical as well.
the cells operate mostly independantly, but answer to the layer above and command the layer below.
Second, me and my 5 friends starting An Island Onto Itself won't work, because what we need to survive and what we need to maintain standard of living will be with held from us.