[neilk]

The article opens with an example of someone seeing how life broke down in postwar Italy. But there is an alternate view of how humans behave in crisis, well-articulated by Rebecca Solnit in "A Paradise Built in Hell". She notes that, in actual crises, the expected apocalypse of savagery never arises. Instead there is often an unusual sense of solidarity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/books/21book.html

Now, this has no bearing on the claim that humans have a limited capacity for rationality, which is obviously true at some level. But I want to draw your attention to the rhetorical strategy. In order to get you to submit to the idea that domination is normal, they first have to depress your hope in humanity. It then follows that one's choices are between slavery and chaos.