My point is not that the general state of intelligence and competence and organization don't matter, it's that the game-changing and culture-changing science and technology originates with the highly superior and exceptional.
No, you're wrong too. (I'm implying Micro is wrong as well.)
Geniuses will exist in every state of man. Genius is a given.
What doesn't exist is incentive to pursue that genius. A centrally planned economy will try to find those geniuses and exploit them for their own purposes. Because a centrally planned economy is incapable of having the knowledge as to those geniuses "best" use, they will be directed and encouraged to the preferred aims of the leaders of that society. (Which is why so many of the Russian geniuses were dealing with weapons.)
Geniuses in a free society are free to invent, think and fail on their own. Others will find ways to use their genius to supply a need or want in that society. As such, we'll get genius in areas not directed by the central authority, leading to advances in areas not even dreamed previously.
The answer isn't people organizing efforts towards production (we don't need even C or D students for that, we barely need literacy for that, and our factories in Asian countries will bear that out) nor is it having the smartest or the brightest. The smartest and the brightest will exist as a matter of random chance. What we need is freedom to pursue genius in whatever areas it exists.
What
we everyone needs is less government interference.