Godwin stared at Ben for a moment, then chuckled. " "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers' yes, it all sounds hopelessly inadequate to the grand tasks, right? But humanity doesn't progress through some process of collective enlightenment. We progress because an individual or small team somewhere makes a breakthrough, and everyone else benefits. Three centuries ago, in a region with a very high rate of illiteracy, one man discovers calculus, or two men do and the course of our species is changed forever. A century ago, one man discovers relativity, and nothing is ever the same. Tell me, Ben, do you know exactly how an internal combustion engine works could you assemble one even if I gave you the parts? Do you know how to vulcanize rubber? Of course not, but you benefit from the existence of the automobile all the same. That's how it works. In the primitive world I know we're not supposed to use those words anymore but indulge me there's no great chasm between what one tribesman knows and another. Not so in the Western world. The division of labor is the very mark of civilization: the higher the degree of division of labor, the more advanced the society. And the most important division of labor is the intellectual division of labor. A minuscule number of people worked on the Manhattan Project and yet the planet was changed by it forever. In the past decade, you had a few small teams decoding the human genome. Never mind that most of humanity can't remember the difference between Nyquil and niacin they'll benefit all the same. People everywhere are using personal computers people who couldn't understand a scrap of computer code, don't know the first thing about integrated circuitry. The mastery belongs to the happy few, and yet the multitudes benefit. The way our species advances isn't through vast, collective exertions the Jews building the Pyramids. It's through individuals, through very small elites, who discover fire, the wheel, or the central processing unit, and thereby change the very landscape of our lives. And what's true in science and technology can be true of politics, as well. Except the learning curve here takes place over a far longer period of time. Which means that by the time we've learned from our errors, we've been replaced by younger upstarts who make those errors all over again. We don't learn enough, because we're not around long enough. The people who founded Sigma recognized this as an inherent limitation, one that our species would eventually have to overcome if we were to survive. Are you starting to see, Ben?"
"Keep going," Ben said, like a hesitant student.
"The efforts of Sigma our attempt to moderate the politics of the postwar era were only the beginning. Now we can change the face of the planet! Ensure universal peace, prosperity, and security, through the wise management and marketing of the planet's resources. If that's what you call a conspiracy of the elite well, is it really such a bad thing? If a few miserable war refugees have to meet their maker ahead of schedule in order to save the world, is that really such a tragedy?"
"It's only for the ones you judge worthy, right?" Ben said. "You want to keep it from everyone else? There will be two classes of human being."
"The ruled and the rulers. But that's inevitable, Ben. There will be the Wise Men and the ruled masses. That's the only way to engineer a viable society. The world's already overpopulated. Much of Africa doesn't even have clean drinking water. If everyone lives twice or three times longer, think of what this will do! The world would collapse! That's why, in his wisdom, Lenz knows it must only be available to the few."
"And what happens to democracy? The rule of the people?"
Godwin's cheeks colored. "Spare me the sentimental rhetoric, Ben. The history of man's inhumanity to man has been history itself: mobs destroying what the nobility had painstakingly constructed. The main task in politics has always been saving the people from themselves. This wouldn't go down well with the undergraduates, but the principle of aristocracy was always correct: aristos, kratos rule of the best. The problem was that aristocracy often didn't give you the best. But imagine if for the first time in human history, you could rationalize the system, create a hidden aristocracy based on merit with Wiedergeborenen serving as the custodians of civilization."