ABSTRACT
The emerging despotic state is a weak one. It is a state that fears society, cannot lead it and relates to it through force legitimated by the cultivation of fear. It is a state designed to secure capitalist rule during a prolonged crisis of capitalism. Crucially, the spread and variety of popular political struggles in public space during the height of biosecurity restrictions, point to a rejection of the biopolitical reduction of life to individualised metabolic survival. Under lockdown, society reconstituted itself politically, affirming its life to be collective, meaningful and purposeful. It thus shattered biosecurity, its power and its significations. Moreover, in doing so, society overcame state-induced fear. It thus shook the only remaining platform of state authority and legitimacy. Potentially, if it persists and deepens, social resistance can drive the dialectics of fear that underpin contemporary government to its conclusion.
