
The Econoclasts
With Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau
UnHerd · UnHerd Limited
Show overview
The Econoclasts has been publishing since 2023, and across the 3 years since has built a catalogue of 168 episodes, alongside 1 trailer or bonus episode. That works out to roughly 140 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 39 min and 59 min — though episode length varies meaningfully from one episode to the next. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language News show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 6 days ago, with 26 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2024, with 69 episodes published. Published by UnHerd Limited.
From the publisher
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.Don't forget to rate, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Latest Episodes
View all 168 episodesThe fall of Starmer & Europe's great energy swindle
NATO’s narrative collapse & Anthropic’s AI shutdown
Germany’s historic humiliation & Britain's financial trap
AI's job apocalypse & the transhumanist endgame
Europe’s China trap & capitalism’s AI death knell
Trump's secret China truce & Labour's economic chaos
The end of Starmer & Trump’s shady Iran scam
Trump vs. Merz & how London broke Britain
The dollar's Gulf bail-out & the end of US hegemony
China's AI war victory & Europe's desperate Russia reunion
Trump’s Hormuz backlash & Hungary’s revolution illusion
Iran’s asymmetric victory & Europe’s looming energy shock

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.

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.

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.

How Iran exposed the West’s military weakness
🔗 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.

NATO’s hidden agenda & why Europe will fail Ukraine
In 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.

Trump’s Iran strikes and the new forever war
🔗 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.

Why Trump will win the tariff war
🔗Go to unherd.com/econoclastslive to get your tickets to Yanis & Wolfgang's upcoming event!In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau pull back the curtain to reveal the shifting tectonic plates of the global economy, arguing that the world’s fixation on Donald Trump’s tariffs and Supreme Court rulings is a dangerous distraction from a much more profound transformation – namely a new form of power that allows Big Tech to hold the West to ransom, and an AI revolution that will permanently dismantle the foundations of human agency, private property, and the free market. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marco Rubio’s new world order & Starmer’s plan to rejoin Europe
In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau dissect the false orthodoxies surrounding the current state of the transatlantic relationship and the UK’s post-Brexit strategy. Pointing to Marco Rubio’s Munich speech as a signal that America has pivoted its priorities away from its security guarantee with Europe, and highlighting Keir Starmer’s attempt to seek a backdoor return to the EU through regulatory alignment, they paint a stark picture of a West in transition, where old alliances are crumbling and delusional European leaders remain unable to confront the fiscal and military realities of a changing world order. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.