So how did the Apaches resist the same Spanish who had wiped out the Aztecs and the Incas? By not having pyramids and leaders and being decentralised. Pretty much like the P2P music sharing sites like the later versions of Napster and Kazoo such as eDonkey which is so decentralised the lawyers couldn't find them to sue them.
This is the idea of The Starfish and The Spider - a book about open, decentralised organisations. Starfish, suggest the two authors [both entrepreneurs from silicon valley] can more than survive losing a limb, in fact the severed leg turns into an entirely new starfish. Spiders, in contrast, die, if their head is cut off. The idea is that while spiders represent top-down, command-and-control organisations, starfish are much more like the widipedias, the ebays and craigslist, of the internet - no heirarchy but peer-to-peer relationships.
It's an entertaining, easy read with good analysis - such as their notion of eBay as a hybrid organisation, a centralised company that decentralises the customer experience. Well worth reading for a good overview of the last 9 years [when Shawn Fanning set up Napster] and of the factors that are going to keep change happening.
The Starfish and The Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom.