Mbembe suggests we are exiting from democracy, as contemporary sovereignty results in a large segment of the population living "at the edge of life" (37), subjected to either separation or death. For Mbembe, colonialism and slavery are "democracies' bitter sediment" (20), as both are constitutive of liberal democracies. Mbembe's analysis highlights our contemporary societies' production of third places for brutal violence outside law, drawing parallels with both the colony and the plantation. Terror and counter-terror produce fears that justify permanent states of exception, creating conditions to continuously use death worlds outside law to protect our suspended rights and freedoms. These conditions produce strict surveillance that focuses on "maximum utility and enjoyment" (36) instead of discipline.
Chapter 2 addresses our society of enmity, tracing the origins of contemporary hate, separation, and extermination through the colonial context. The author notes that security is enforced to maintain freedom, although freedom is merely a myth to reinforce the need for security. According to Mbembe, liberal democracies rely on mythoreligious reasoning to justify the security state, normalizing separation through camps. Both nanoracism and hydraulic racism contribute to the construction of the enemy, subjecting them to "daily racist injuries"
Mbembe explores the connections between our exit from democracy and neoliberal and global capitalism, the changing technologies of the border, and the loss of reason. He argues that technology dramatically transformed our borders, creating an omnipresent and mobile border that excludes large segments of the population. He claims the greatest threat to liberal democracy is the growing division between democracy and global capitalism. The state is controlled by economic elites whose actions solely focus on producing profits at all costs. For Mbembe, neoliberal capitalism has transformed politics into a war against the classes, separating and subjugating the poor, minorities, women, Muslims, and the disabled to continuous violence (115). Alongside these transformations, knowledge is destabilized and becomes more narrowly interpreted as "knowledge for the market" (109), as acceptable knowledge is produced through computational calculations. This transformation contributes to the loss of reason and democracy, as well as a return to animism. Mbembe argues a critique of technology and re-establishing reason are necessary to challenge the post-fact democratic order.
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