Access to Knowledge as Economic Freedom

Sor Juana's struggle to access books, education, and intellectual resources in 17th-century Mexico reveals how knowledge restriction functions as economic control. Those denied access to learning cannot develop skills, cannot create value, and cannot claim economic independence. Libertarian justice recognizes that true property rights and economic freedom require the ability to educate oneself, access information, and develop intellectual capacity. Sor Juana's deliberate accumulation of a personal library—and her fierce protection of reading time—was an act of economic self-determination. When societies restrict who may read, study, or think deeply (historically women, colonized peoples, the poor), they deny those groups the means to acquire and control property meaningfully. This concept applies to contemporary debates about educational access, library funding, and digital divides, arguing that knowledge barriers are structural violations of libertarian justice that trap people in economic dependency.