The Econoclasts

UnHerd

The Econoclasts is a new podcast from UnHerd hosted by economist Yanis Varoufakis and journalist Wolfgang Munchau. While they don't always agree politically, they are united in one conviction: the consensus is rotten. Mainstream economics has consistently failed to predict the events that shape our world, yet this broken orthodoxy still dominates policy and media. Each week, they choose two pillars of the established orthodoxy — the "settled facts" — and shatter them, cutting through the spin to connect the dots between money, geopolitics, and the real forces shaping our future.

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173 episodes
Updated July 28

Episodes173

Newest first

July 28 · 41 min
China’s hidden crisis & the West's dangerous wealth bubble
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau reveal the hidden macroeconomic realities behind China’s ongoing growth recession and local debt crisis, and expose how decades of central bank bailouts and Quantitative Easing have fuelled an inflated wealth bubble that leaves a fragile Western financial system dangerously vulnerable and dependent on US asset inflation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 21 · 38 min
The UK’s investment trap & the lie behind Western wealth
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect the political delusions stalling Western growth, debunking the idea that state investment alone can revive the UK, exposing Europe’s dangerous tech gap behind America and China, and revealing how flawed economic data hides declining US living standards. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 14 · 37 min
Europe’s populist panic & China’s real free market
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect the establishment’s self-defeating 'lawfare' strategy against rising right-wing populists like Marine Le Pen, and Nigel Farage, while debunking the myth that capitalism is synonymous with free markets by contrasting Western state-protected monopolies like SpaceX with China’s highly competitive, state-guided economic model. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
July 7 · 38 min
The tragedy of America 250 & the truth about Ukraine
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau analyse the structural decay of American hegemony at its 250-year milestone, while exposing the corporate and political motivations behind the media's distorted Ukraine war narrative used to justify a domestic defence heist funded by ballooning public debt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
June 30 · 39 min
The great Brexit myth & Germany’s industrial collapse
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the popular orthodoxy surrounding Brexit, exposing the phoney statistics used to fabricate a narrative of British macroeconomic self-harm, while dissecting the existential reality of Germany's inevitable structural collapse through its automakers' loss of the critical AI and EV race to China. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
June 23 · 36 min
The fall of Starmer & Europe's great energy swindle
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect the fallout of Keir Starmer’s resignation to expose a broader Western leadership crisis, before debunking the myth of the free market to reveal the hidden corporate swindle rigging European electricity prices - a systemic failure that is not only driving up consumer bills but starving the continent of the energy capacity needed to compete with the US and China in the AI race. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
June 16 · 37 min
NATO’s narrative collapse & Anthropic’s AI shutdown
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau expose the dangerous flaws of a newly hyped Trump-Iran pre-deal, reveal how Europe's aggressive shift toward wasteful defence spending is a delusion built on exaggerated threats, and uncover a widening technological chasm where aggressive US nationalist regulations and a stagnant European mindset are combining to leave the West severely outpaced by China’s productivity-boosting integration of AI and robotics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
June 9 · 37 min
Germany’s historic humiliation & Britain's financial trap
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk conventional wisdom by analysing Germany’s shocking UN Security Council voting failure as a symptom of its diplomatic hubris and international unpopularity, while tearing down the illusion of British sovereignty to reveal how the United Kingdom has become a financial vassal completely trapped by its dependence on leveraged American capital. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
June 2 · 34 min
AI's job apocalypse & the transhumanist endgame
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the delusions surrounding artificial intelligence by examining how its recent ability to solve complex mathematical problems signals a massive structural threat to the global labour market, while warning against the transhumanist endgame of 'Techlord' Silicon Valley elites like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who view Homo sapiens as mere primitive hardware to be replaced by cyborgs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 26 · 37 min
Europe’s China trap & capitalism’s AI death knell
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the mainstream economic orthodoxies surrounding Europe's aggressive tariff strategy against China while simultaneously warning that the rise of AI and Big Tech is not the future of market capitalism but rather its death knell, as centralised platforms trap society in a new era of techno-feudalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 19 · 38 min
Trump's secret China truce & Labour's economic chaos
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the mainstream narratives around Donald Trump’s recent Beijing summit, reveal how the West’s geopolitical delusions disadvantage it in a new cold war with China, and expose the flawed economic strategy of Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham as he attempts to replace a failing Keir Starmer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 12 · 37 min
The end of Starmer & Trump’s shady Iran scam
🔗Get your tickets for The Econoclasts Live with Hasan Piker here: http://unherd.com/econoclastslive In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect Keir Starmer’s attempts to maintain power in a declining UK economy alongside the paradoxical surge in US market wealth triggered by Donald Trump’s war with Iran - a conflict that is failing to smoke out Tehran while simultaneously enriching a narrow elite of tech lords and fracking independents at the expense of the global working class. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 5 · 39 min
Trump vs. Merz & how London broke Britain
🔗Get your tickets for The Econoclasts Live with Hasan Piker here: http://unherd.com/econoclastslive In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the myth of European strategic sovereignty and the lie at the heart of the City of London, exposing how Germany’s failure to innovate within its declining car industry leaves it defenceless against Trump’s revenge tariff assault, while the UK’s ‘finance curse’ has replaced productive industrial investment with a parasitic reliance on property speculation and shareholder payouts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
April 28 · 34 min
The dollar's Gulf bail-out & the end of US hegemony
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the orthodox view that the newly established U.S. dollar swap lines for Gulf states are a charitable bailout for the Middle East, arguing instead that these facilities are a desperate signalling mechanism designed to bail out the American financial system and the petrodollar recycling machine, as the escalating war in Iran threatens to permanently dismantle U.S. economic hegemony. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
April 21 · 31 min
China's AI war victory & Europe's desperate Russia reunion
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau pull back the curtain on the fairy tales of Western geopolitical and technological independence, arguing that Europe is sleepwalking into a decade of industrial decline and techno-vassalage because it has allowed its core innovation to be hollowed out by Silicon Valley, while simultaneously failing to acknowledge the reality that its own energy security and economic survival will ultimately force a desperate reconnection with Russia, even as China successfully weaponises Western sanctions and digital isolation to leapfrog a generation ahead in the global AI war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
April 14 · 33 min
Trump’s Hormuz backlash & Hungary’s revolution illusion
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dismantle the orthodoxies surrounding the Iran war and Hungarian election by arguing that Donald Trump’s "blockade of the blockade" in the Strait of Hormuz is less a repeat of the 1956 Suez crisis than a catalyst for a new electro-economy and a non-dollar financial architecture, while simultaneously warning that the landslide victory of Péter Magyar over Viktor Orbán is not the liberal restoration the West is celebrating, but rather the replacement of one right wing leader with a fresh face of the same illiberal nationalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
April 7 · 34 min
Iran’s asymmetric victory & Europe’s looming energy shock
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect the crumbling facade of Western geostrategic and economic orthodoxies, arguing that the United States has already reached a military checkmate against Iran, while simultaneously warning that Europe’s delusion of energy independence and perilous vulnerability to supply shocks will likely collapse into a humiliating, American-mediated return to Russian gas. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
March 31 · 39 min
Europe’s Iran delusion & Palantir’s road to extinction
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dismantle the orthodoxies of European leadership and AI-driven warfare, breaking down how the EU’s structural fragmentation make it incapable of filling the global power vacuum, and exposing how corporations like Palantir provide absolution from accountability by replacing human judgment with the clinical, automated efficiency of cloud capital. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
March 25 · 56 min
Econoclasts LIVE: Iran and the New World Disorder
Live from a packed Emmanuel Centre, the Econoclasts brought their podcast to London for a sweeping ‘around-the-globe’ deconstruction of the failing orthodoxies shaping our modern world. From the structural drivers of ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East to a sobering analysis of the Ukraine-Russia stalemate and the undeniable rise of Chinese technological supremacy, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau strip away the myths regarding China’s industrial success and Europe’s own productivity collapse, and debate whether the West’s current trajectory can be reversed or if we are witnessing a permanent shift in the global balance of power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
March 18 · 35 min
The West’s Iran crisis: Global recession & Russian revenue
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dismantle the narratives surrounding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, breaking down how the resulting energy shock could trigger a permanent global recession. As the West faces systemic economic damage and a depleted military arsenal, and Russia reaps a massive financial windfall, is the West sleepwalking into a dual defeat in both Iran and Ukraine? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.