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DanArmak comments on On the Power of Intelligence and Rationality - Less Wrong
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"I'm not sure I agree that Nazi Germany was extremely inefficient (most literature I've seen lauds its efficiency)"
This is pure propaganda. Read Speer's Inside the Third Reich- the higher Nazi officials were generally very inept at governing, and spent so much time fighting amongst themselves that it was quite rare for them to get anything done at all.
"and I'm not sure extreme efficiency and corruption are features of pre-Enlightenment government that contrast it with modern government."
Suppose that, in a modern, democratic country, candidate X is running for President. His father was nobody in particular, but X has shown himself to be a very capable thinker, and quite a competent politician. Would you ever hear someone say that it would disgrace the office of the Presidency if X were elected, because his father was nobody in particular, regardless of how meritorious X was in and of himself?
That was quite routine in Ancient Rome (the X I was thinking of was Marcus Tullius Cicero). And Ancient Rome was one of the saner pre-Enlightenment governments.
I've read that, and recently I also read the book The Wages Of Destruction by Adam Tooze, an economic analysis of the Nazi regime. He devotes a chapter to Speer's book and claims that Speer's story is in fact the propaganda. Tooze says the Reich was reasonably efficient and competent, if not exceptionally so among other nations, and that Speer deliberately painted it as inefficient to falsely present himself as the savior who made huge efficiency gains possible.
It might take many years of studying the primary sources (and of studying some economics and industrial and military management) for me to form a personal opinion on this... So please form your own.