Economic Independence Through Intellectual Work

Sor Juana's position in the convent was secured partly through her intellectual reputation: her plays, poems, and theological writings were valued and sometimes patronized. Though she never accumulated great wealth, her mind was her economic asset. She could support herself through intellectual labor rather than through marriage, sexual availability, or complete dependence on male relatives—paths typically forced on women of her era. This model shows that libertarian property rights extend to the fruits of intellectual work. Knowledge workers, writers, teachers, and thinkers can accumulate capital and achieve independence through cognitive labor. This is crucial for those excluded from traditional property ownership or wage labor: women, colonized peoples, and marginalized groups can use learning and knowledge production as routes to autonomy. Sor Juana's life demonstrates that intellectual property rights are not luxuries for the wealthy but mechanisms of emancipation for the excluded. Economic independence through mind-work is a form of property freedom essential to libertarian justice.