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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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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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29 episodes
weekly
Avg 39 min
English

Episodes 29

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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.

Showing 21–29 of 29 episodes