The proprietary machine: The ontological foundations of exploitation in modern political thought

This thesis argues that Western metaphysics links human supremacy and property to produce systematic domination. It begins with the longstanding Human/Animal divide: philosophers define the "proper" human by attaching extra traits such as reason, language, or morality, then push the remainder into an empty Animal category. It treats ownership as the defining signifier of proper humanity and explains how this identification turns anthropocentric exclusion into the legitimisation of exploitation. This ontological split mirrors the distinction between proprietor and property. The discussion traces how that division already stratifies humanity. It shows how Locke and Hegel recast this hierarchy by equating humanity with the capacity, right, and duty to own. Ownership starts with the body and reaches land, animals, and other people. The study names this chained logic the Proprietary Machine and lists five recurrent moves: enable appropriation, grant moral warrant, normalise violence, mould subjectivities, and police the proper/improper line. Close readings of Derrida, Agamben, Wynter, and Weheliye confirm the machine's reach across eras and regions. The thesis supplies posthuman and animal studies a concrete lever, gives critical property scholarship an ontological account, and refines race and colonial critiques through a unifying mechanism, thus bringing together debates that rarely converge. Recognising the Proprietary Machine confirms that emancipatory politics must dislodge ownership itself rather than adjust its effects.