Knowledge Enclosure and Intellectual Commons

Sor Juana's era witnessed the closing off of knowledge through censorship, restricted access to books, and institutional monopolies on learning. Her insistence on access to libraries, manuscripts, and ideas represents a libertarian challenge to knowledge enclosure—the appropriation of human intellectual heritage by powerful institutions. While defending individual property rights in one's own creations, this concept recognizes that genuine freedom requires a commons of foundational knowledge: access to texts, traditions, and ideas that individuals need to think freely and educate themselves. Libertarian justice, properly understood, prevents both monopolistic enclosure (by institutions or corporations) and authoritarian restriction (by states or churches). The concept distinguishes between ownership of one's original work and the right to build upon and access existing human knowledge. Applied today, this framework resists intellectual property regimes that restrict access to medicine, information, or cultural works, while still protecting creators' rights. Sor Juana's model shows that freedom requires both ownership rights and knowledge accessibility.