Ants behave similarly. If Steven Johnson's book Emergence, he writes that ant colonies have three "landmarks" - the queen, the dead ants, and a "trash pile" - husks and leftovers from food and foraging. The queen is placed first, and as ants die they will place the dead ant pile - but they will place it to be at the max distance (while still in the colony) from the queen. The trash pile is then placed at the location that maximizes the distance from the other two.<p>He claims the the queen is not responsible for this behavior - she's not a "dictator" nor much smarter than other ants. They are able to do it because, individually, they will move things to a better place if they know one exists.<p>They also manage to distribute their efforts very well, because each ant keeps track ly of what other ants are doing (based on pheromones and running into other ants). If an ant senses that there aren't enough ants looking for new food (based on his limited interactions), he will go look for new food.<p>Really cool stuff, though I agree the title isn't great. This isn't really about democracy, but individually simple behaviors that are optimal for the group.