Barefoot Economics in a world of Hobnailed Boots with storyteller Inez Aponte

Dec 10, 2025

Inez Aponte, an educator and storyteller, champions Barefoot Economics as a path away from predatory capitalism. She explores the vital distinction between fundamental needs and culturally-shaped satisfiers, illustrating concepts like subsistence, affection, and identity. Inez critiques narrow technological fixes while advocating for local economies rooted in community and connection with nature. They discuss the importance of crafting pro-social narratives and creating communal spaces to meet real needs, emphasizing that true wealth comes from satisfying these needs.

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INSIGHT

Economics As The Dominant Story

The dominant economic story keeps people passive by promising growth will fix social and environmental crises.
Inez Aponte says Barefoot Economics reframes the economy to meet finite human needs instead of endless wants.

INSIGHT

Nine Fundamental Human Needs

Human Scale Development defines nine finite fundamental human needs that the economy should satisfy.
Inez lists needs like subsistence, affection, freedom, participation, understanding, creation, idleness, protection and identity.

INSIGHT

Needs Versus Satisfiers

Distinguish needs from satisfiers so you can evaluate how well things actually meet needs.
Satisfiers are culturally shaped and often chosen because they generate profit, not genuine fulfilment.

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If we are to build systems that meet our real needs we have to first understand what those needs are and start growing the stuff that will allow us to thrive: good food from healthy soils, safe and supportive homes and communities, space to develop and express our creativity, opportunities to increase our capacity for co-operation and kindness. As much as these, though, we need to understand what an economy is for - why it does what it does. And while we're all clear that the death cult of Predatory Capitalism exists to enrich the few at the expense of the rest of the living web, it's not always clear what a flourishing economy might look like.

So we're going to explore exactly this with our guest today. Inez Aponte is a self-described 'Dissident of Capitalism', she's an educator, storyteller, and consultant who's spent 15 years bridging mainstream economics with human-scale alternatives. Using the Human Scale Development Approach (Barefoot Economics), she helps professionals see the economic system itself, and imagine what comes next.

Barefoot Economics (also known as Human Scale Development) was developed by Manfred Max-Neef and colleagues in Chile as a response to the predations of the colonial capital system. It reframes economic thinking away from endless wants and towards nine fundamental needs: Subsistence, Freedom, Participation, Understanding, Affection, Creation, Idleness, Protection and Identity.

We are wealthy when our needs are satisfied, regardless of our income. This means we can also be poor in multiple ways, even when we have a ‘healthy’ bank balance.

Inez has built this forward into a framework for the 21st century. Her 'Beautiful Economies Learning Lab' breaks people out of mainstream economic thinking to explore how we can build systems that meet real needs while healing ourselves, communities, and the Earth.

So this is our deep dive. Let's go.

https://www.beautifuleconomies.com/
https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Money_and_Economics/The_Future_of_Money-Bernard_Lietaer.pdf

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