The Economics of Enforced Ignorance

Sor Juana could not attend university despite her brilliance, a restriction not accidental but deliberate—designed to maintain clerical and aristocratic monopolies on knowledge and authority. Enforced ignorance is an economic strategy. When dominant groups restrict others' access to education, literacy, financial knowledge, and technical skills, they guarantee continued economic subordination. This goes beyond individual opportunity costs; it shapes entire economic systems built on information asymmetry where the few profit from the many's lack of knowledge. Agricultural systems keep farmers ignorant of crop science, labor systems keep workers ignorant of their legal rights, financial systems exploit financial illiteracy. Economic justice requires radical transparency and universal access to knowledge that enables autonomous participation. This means free public education at all levels, demystifying technical and financial information, breaking professional monopolies that gatekeep useful knowledge. Sor Juana's fight for education was fundamentally economic—understanding that knowledge was the precondition for any other form of justice or freedom.