This reminds me of Iain M Bank's Player of Games in which the hero finds a winning strategy in an elaborate StarCraft style board game by decentralising the pro

This reminds me of Iain M Bank's Player of Games in which the hero finds a winning strategy in an elaborate StarCraft style board game by decentralising the production and strength of his ranks, so that his territory was a sprawl of self sufficient mini-empires. I think Banks meant it as an allegory for Islamic/Persian/Asian empires being eventually swept aside by Western civilisation, but it seems relevant here. However one factor I generally find missing in a lot of economic analyses is that no matter how 'feudal' or 'hierarchical' an organisation may be, workers choose whether to work there or not. The classic characteristic of soviet states was that you couldn't leave even if you wanted to...