The principle that mental work creates value and entitles the laborer to ownership and fair return, not absorption into institutional property without recompense.
Sor Juana's voluminous writings—poetry, philosophy, theology, drama—represented immense intellectual labor, yet she received no compensation and had no control over publication or circulation. Her work enriched institutions while she remained materially dependent. This concept recognizes intellectual labor as genuine work deserving property rights and compensation. In Libertarian justice, treating intellectual output as institutional property—extracted from workers without payment—mirrors physical labor exploitation. The mind-worker deserves the same property protections as the hand-worker: ownership of output, ability to sell or gift freely, and fair compensation for value created. Sor Juana's model shows the injustice when brilliant minds labor under systems claiming ownership of all their production. Intellectual labor rights mean individuals own what they create, control its circulation, benefit from its value, and can refuse work that denies them ownership. This protects against a new form of propertylessness: the intellectual proletariat.
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