However, we actually lack an understanding of how large systems are organized.
In the human body, each cell performs its task without a centralized authority but as an individual agent. The cells are selfish and just try to survive. But emergent in this behavior is a human that thinks itself the master of all the cells.
Michael Levin has done surprising things that fall from studying cells of animal bodies and how they can act independently.
We really need a science of agent based systems. I don't know of something that captures it entirely.
What I do know is that top-down hierarchical organizations are fragile and will corrupt with time. Agent based systems are the only way nature will allow to progress much.