The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind

by John Coates

Alternatively, governments and central banks could change prices in the market, such as the rate of interest, and let rational economic agents reallocate their spending and investing dollars accordingly. Unfortunately, the policies following from rational choice theory have not been terribly successful in stabilizing the market, and the ideal of rational choice itself has prevented us from building up any skill in dealing with a human biology run rampant, either at an individual level or at the level of policy. And this challenge is not isolated to the financial markets, for it occurs elsewhere as well. David Owen, the senior British politician and neurologist mentioned above, has been studying this problem in the political world. During his lengthy career in the House of Commons and then the House of Lords, stretching from the 1960s to the present, Owen has observed many political leaders succumb to something very like irrational exuberance, and their resulting hubris often wreaked havoc on the country. Owen recognizes that this syndrome, acquired while exercising power, presents a conundrum for political theory: how do we protect the country from leaders who develop what amounts to a mental illness while holding office? Owen’s concerns echo those of central bankers who similarly face the problem of managing and containing the damage done by an unbalanced biology in the markets.