Democracy is decentralisation. It doesn't 'work'. It's what Churchill called 'the worst form of government'. Except for all the others. Its most egregious failure is that it often fails to undermine things that can and do subvert it. Decentralisation is like a Yin-Yang kind of thing, constantly challenged by its nemesis 'the forces of centralisation'. Ultimately decentralisation, just like democracy, is more resilient over time. At any one time, centralised systems can potentially bring more resources to bear upon a problem more quickly. But because decentralised systems can be designed to 'temporarily centralise' this 'emergency response capability shortfall of decentralised systems' is just a design problem. It turns out that it is also probably the most serious challenge to decentralisation. But because resilience, in the light of the challenges we currently face, is something we are all committing ourselves to tackling, expect 'designing decentralised systems' to stay at the top of the process design agenda for the forseeable future, notwithstanding any yet-to-be-experienced shortcomings and failings of decentralised systems that appear on the horizon.