On balance it's better to be a smart person, that only goes so far when you are malnourished and worked 18 hours per day in a gulag. Or when you simply had to quit school before puberty in order to obtain food for yourself or your loved ones.
Finally: go to China and ask the people you meet how stupid they think it would be not to build a 'democratic society'. You will be politely educated and/or ridiculed, and realize that you are projecting your own (basically correct) way of thinking onto people who don't think your way at all.
I think the will is only a small part of what's required, the competence to pull it off is the larger issue.