Episode notes
Handre van Heerden writes a newsletter called “Economic Heretics”, a weekly deep dive into Austrian economics, sound money, free markets, and why central planning always fails.
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Why Austrian economics clicked for Handre
11:52 - Socialism, communism and fascism: three speeds
14:14 - Why left vs right is nonsense
19:07 - Controlled by others or your own agency?
24:00 - Why socialists never build their own paradise
26:48 - How wealth is actually created
30:17 - 30 communities that all starved
33:10 - Poland's comeback in one generation
38:50 - One loaf of bread in the Soviet Union
41:00 - Mises, Hayek and why prices matter
54:28 - The war on poverty: paying people to stay poor
56:57 - The Great Barrier Reef story
60:00 - Why Austrian economics predicts better
61:59 - Politicians, promises and doing it yourself
73:30 - How the internet revived Austrian ideas
78:20 - The one argument that works
ℹ️ EPISODE SUMMARY
Bram Kanstein and Handre van Heerden discuss why socialism, communism and fascism are one collectivist idea at three different speeds. Handre explains why socialists never build their own paradise: more than 30 communities since the 1700s starved within three years. He argues the real question is how wealth is created, from Dubai to Venezuela. They unpack Mises' calculation problem and Hayek's knowledge problem. Handre closes with 4,000 years of failed price controls, and New York trying again.
