Podcast
The Econoclasts
Hosted by UnHerd · EN
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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26episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The dollar's Gulf bail-out & the end of US hegemony
2w ago00:34:25Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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China's AI war victory & Europe's desperate Russia reunion
3w ago00:31:36Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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Trump’s Hormuz backlash & Hungary’s revolution illusion
4w ago00:33:54Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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Iran’s asymmetric victory & Europe’s looming energy shock
Apr 700:34:02Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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Europe’s Iran delusion & Palantir’s road to extinction
Mar 3100:39:27Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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Econoclasts LIVE: Iran and the New World Disorder
Mar 2500:56:03Tap to summarizeLive 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.
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The West’s Iran crisis: Global recession & Russian revenue
Mar 1800:35:09Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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How Iran exposed the West’s military weakness
Mar 1100:33:44Tap to summarize🔗 Click the following link to get tickets to 'The Econoclasts LIVE' in London on March 23rd: https://unherd.com/econoclastsliveIn this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau strip away the orthodoxies surrounding the ongoing conflict with Iran, and – via analysis of the 1953 CIA coup to the modern-day ‘Syrianisation’ of the Middle East - reveal a strategy-less West paralysed by its own deindustrialisation, dangerously dependent on China, and projecting power externally to mask a profound systemic rot at home. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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NATO’s hidden agenda & why Europe will fail Ukraine
Mar 700:36:43Tap to summarizeIn this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau target the orthodoxy of NATO’s post-1991 expansion as well as dismantling the prevailing narrative surrounding the war in Ukraine, including the logistical delusion of a Western victory and the dereliction of duty by European leadership that risks a global escalation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Trump’s Iran strikes and the new forever war
Mar 200:26:46Tap to summarize🔗 Click the following link to get tickets to 'The Econoclasts LIVE: Is Russia really a threat to Europe?' in London on March 23rd: https://unherd.com/econoclastsliveIn this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect the geopolitical fallout of the U.S. bombing campaign against Iran, arguing that the strikes signal a definitive shift toward a "permanent war doctrine" and expose how Donald Trump has abandoned his non-interventionist promises to embrace a neocon agenda of regional destabilisation. From the erosion of European sovereignty to the strategic victories handed to China and Russia, Yanis and Wolfgang challenge the "weapons of mass destruction" pretexts of the past and analyse the high economic and human cost of a conflict that seems designed to have no end. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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