The Other Canon Foundation

The Other Canon Foundation is a Norwegian research center and international network focused on heterodox economics, economic history, innovation, development, and the institutional conditions that shape national prosperity. Founded in 2000 by economist Erik Reinert together with ten co-founders from economics and related social sciences, the organization was established around the proposition that there is an alternative economic canon beyond the dominant neoclassical tradition. Its founding group brought together scholars and practitioners with backgrounds spanning North America, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern and Western Europe, giving the network an explicitly international orientation. The foundation’s work is not organized around a simple left–right political division. Instead, it presents itself as a critical and eclectic research network that draws on multiple intellectual traditions and historical periods. Influences associated with its approach include Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, Gunnar Myrdal, Gustav von Schmoller, Werner Sombart, Nicholas Kaldor, Max Weber, and Adam Smith. A central concern is the Theory of Uneven Development: the attempt to explain why countries and regions develop along sharply different economic trajectories and why some economies achieve sustained increases in productivity, technological capability, and living standards while others remain dependent on activities with weaker growth potential. The Other Canon places economic history and the history of economic policy at the center of analysis. It challenges economic models that treat equilibrium, perfect information, constant returns to scale, and predictable economic behavior as normal starting points. In its alternative framework, economies are continuously transformed by innovation, entrepreneurship, institutional change, uncertainty, and conflict between financial and productive interests. The organization emphasizes the role of the producer, rather than treating the consumer as the primary analytical subject, and regards innovation as an endogenous process that can be strengthened or weakened by public policy. The foundation’s development perspective gives the state an important role in fostering entrepreneurship, productive capabilities, and industrial transformation. Its approach argues that the economic effects of specialization depend on the type of activity in which a country concentrates. Industries characterized by increasing returns and technological learning can generate cumulative advantages, while activities subject to diminishing returns can leave poorer countries with limited productivity growth even when investment increases. From this perspective, unrestricted free trade is not universally beneficial: developing countries may need policy space, including temporary protection and active industrial policy, to build industries capable of competing internationally. The Other Canon also disputes the idea that the economy can be analyzed independently of society or that finance is cleanly separable from the real economy. It treats economic institutions as socially embedded and views tensions involving financial and productive sectors as recurring features requiring public regulation. This framework has been used to criticize both laissez-faire prescriptions and static neoclassical assumptions, while retaining insights from thinkers associated with capitalism, innovation, development, and structural change. In addition to research and working papers, the organization has participated in academic publishing. Since 2009, it has maintained the TAOCS, or The Anthem Other Canon Series, with Anthem Press in London. The series has included work on Schumpeter, Carlota Perez, Ragnar Nurkse, and national innovation systems. Through research, publications, conferences, and its international scholarly network, The Other Canon Foundation seeks to influence debates about development policy, industrialization, innovation, and the historical foundations of economic prosperity.

The Other Canon Foundation emerged in 2000 as an organized response to dissatisfaction with the dominance of neoclassical economics in economic theory and policy. Economist Erik Reinert founded the organization with ten other participants from economics and the social sciences. The founders came from a range of geographical and intellectual backgrounds, including North America, Latin America, Asia, and both Eastern and Western Europe. This diversity was reflected in the foundation’s design as a network rather than merely a conventional single-discipline research institute. The name refers to the founders’ claim that economic thought contains another canon: a body of ideas that has often been marginalized by the prevailing mainstream but remains useful for understanding development, innovation, production, and structural change. The foundation does not define this alternative canon through a fixed political ideology. Its members instead draw selectively from several traditions, including Schumpeterian economics, Keynesian economics, Marxian analysis, historical economics, institutional economics, development economics, and classical political economy. Frequently cited influences include Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, Gunnar Myrdal, Gustav von Schmoller, Werner Sombart, Nicholas Kaldor, Max Weber, and Adam Smith. A major organizing concept is the Theory of Uneven Development. This perspective asks why nations do not converge automatically and why economic activities generate different patterns of productivity, learning, employment, and income. The foundation treats the history of economic policy as essential evidence, arguing that the successful development of wealthy economies has often involved active public institutions, industrial support, and policies that would be difficult to reconcile with simple versions of free-trade doctrine. The Other Canon’s critique of mainstream economics focuses partly on its treatment of the economy as static or tending toward equilibrium. The foundation disputes assumptions such as perfect information, perfect foresight, constant returns to scale, and the idea that economic activities are broadly interchangeable. It emphasizes that economies are continually altered by novelty, technological change, entrepreneurial activity, and uncertain expectations. Firms and entrepreneurs may gain temporary advantages or quasi-monopolies from knowledge, innovation, and organizational capabilities, making change rather than equilibrium the central economic condition. The organization also argues that innovation and growth should not be treated as external additions to an otherwise complete economic model. Public policy, institutions, education, industrial capabilities, and entrepreneurial environments can influence whether innovation occurs and whether it produces broad development. In this view, the state can play a constructive role in supporting productive transformation and in helping economies move toward activities with stronger learning and increasing returns. Development policy is consequently one of the foundation’s most prominent concerns. Erik Reinert’s work, including his 2007 book How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, criticized the idea that free trade alone provides a universal route out of poverty. The associated argument is that poorer countries may need permission and policy capacity to protect emerging industries until they can compete internationally. The foundation links this issue to the distinction between increasing-returns industries, where specialization can reinforce productivity and technological progress, and diminishing-returns activities, where additional investment may not produce comparable gains. The Other Canon further presents economic activity as embedded in society and argues that finance should not be treated as entirely separate from the productive economy. Conflicts between financial interests and the real economy are viewed as normal institutional tensions rather than anomalies, supporting a case for regulation and public oversight. From 2009, the foundation expanded its publishing activity through TAOCS, The Anthem Other Canon Series, produced with Anthem Press in London. The series has included a biography of Joseph Schumpeter, a Festschrift examining Carlota Perez’s work on techno-economic paradigms, editions of Ragnar Nurkse’s English-language writings and scholarship about him, and a new edition of Bengt-Åke Lundvall’s work on national innovation systems. These publications extend the foundation’s research agenda beyond commentary and into the preservation, development, and dissemination of alternative economic traditions.

• 2009

  Launch of The Anthem Other Canon Series

  [1]The Other Canon Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  The foundation began publishing the TAOCS book series with Anthem Press in London.

• 2007

  Publication of Reinert’s development critique

  [1]The Other Canon Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  Erik Reinert published How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, a work associated with the foundation’s criticism of universal free-trade prescriptions and its emphasis on industrial development.

• 2000

  Foundation established

  [1]The Other Canon Foundationen.wikipedia.org

  Erik Reinert and ten co-founders created The Other Canon Foundation as a research center and network for heterodox economics.

An international heterodox-economics research network offering historically grounded and institutionally oriented alternatives to mainstream neoclassical economic analysis.

• Research · 2000

  Heterodox economics research

  Research examining economic development, structural change, innovation, entrepreneurship, institutions, and economic history from perspectives that challenge standard neoclassical assumptions. The work is eclectic and draws on historical, institutional, Schumpeterian, Keynesian, Marxian, and development-economics traditions.

• Publications

  Working papers

  Working papers disseminate research associated with the foundation and its broader scholarly network. Topics include uneven development, national innovation systems, economic policy history, industrialization, and the relationship between finance and productive activity.

• Academic publishing · 2009

  The Anthem Other Canon Series

  A book series published with Anthem Press from 2009 onward. Its listed publications include work on Joseph Schumpeter, Carlota Perez’s techno-economic paradigms, Ragnar Nurkse, and Bengt-Åke Lundvall’s national innovation systems.

• Events and convening

  Academic conferences and network activities

  The foundation functions as an international scholarly network and supports discussion of heterodox economics through conferences, research collaboration, and engagement among economists and social scientists.

• 2009

  Expand into a dedicated academic publishing seriesStrategy

  Background

  The foundation sought to make research associated with the Other Canon available through a sustained publishing program rather than relying only on network activities and working papers.

  Action taken

  It established TAOCS, The Anthem Other Canon Series, in partnership with Anthem Press in London.

  Aftermath

  The series published works and edited collections concerning Schumpeter, Carlota Perez, Ragnar Nurkse, and national innovation systems.

  Source

1. 1The Other Canon Foundationen.wikipedia.org
2. 2The Other Canon Foundation official websiteothercanon.org