This is definitionally backwards. It assumes that it can be known ahead of time who the "best" are.
"Picking better technocrats" is impossible a priori. We don't know who the best are until they have been selected by the market. It's like determining ahead of time what the best species are.
"Best" is not defined, it is discovered. Until then, we don't even know the meaning of the term.
We could define it, if you define what you want your outcomes to be. For example, if we want to scientifically manage steel production in a way that maximizes steel output per given cost, then we need highly skilled statisticians and logistics supply-chain people in charge. Presumably it's possible to develop objective tests for someone's skill at statistics or supply-chain management (that's why we have technical education, right?), and then put those skilled people in charge, rather than someone like Brezhnev. Or, if you want to develop electric cars, then put the country's top engineers on the project, rather than someone who happens to be the brother of the oblast governor's wife.
(I'm not sure I actually believe that. But I'm not sure I believe the market answer either, since on the scale of large companies, there are so many factors involved, that luck and timing more than skill tend to be huge ones determining who ends up in top management positions of successful companies.)
Well, I think that the most objective test is a market. Efficiency only matters if we know what the goal is, and we don't. Why are electric cars the correct outcome, a priori? Our choice of electric cars as a goal is instinctual.
This is why we have ethanol subsidies. We "knew" the right outcome and tried to make it so.
"Picking better technocrats" is impossible a priori. We don't know who the best are until they have been selected by the market. It's like determining ahead of time what the best species are.
"Best" is not defined, it is discovered. Until then, we don't even know the meaning of the term.