On faith and knowledge: a question about economic ideas

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Ok, I am curious about the backgrounds with which people are addressing economic questions and I am curious if any trends can be noted. This poll will have 3 basic options(free marketeer, centrist, interventionist)

Free marketeers are people who believe that markets work relatively well without intervention, and this category can include people who are consider themselves significantly pro-market such as some conservatives, down to minarchists and anarcho-capitalists.

Centrists are people who want a more mixed economy than the free-marketeer, but still want the capitalistic market to play a very significant role in coordinating the economy. This means that they will promote some levels of welfare and some regulations, but otherwise think that capitalistic markets work reasonably well.

Interventionists are people who want the government to intervene more in markets and often think that capitalistic markets will often deviate strongly from improving welfare if not checked with strong regulatory power, or that capitalistic markets are not a decent solution for organizing the economy. This can include populists, and pretty strong left wingers all the way down to socialists, or traditional anarchists(who really screw up any labeling attempt by being so stridently different than the rest of the anti-market groups, but who I hope will forgive my bad terminology)

Also, as for the categories of education on economics, I will try to include 4 groups: those with at least a minor in economics(a minor being a cut-off as it is relatively significant), those who have taken at least one college economics class(test credit counts), those who have taken economics at the high school level, and those with no formal economics background at all. I apologize if this is to constricting, but other backgrounds can be harder to quantify.

centrist leaning towards free market but i'm not enough of an idealist to think that free markets would work.

I guess I count as a centrist leaning toward free marketeer. Maybe just the latter. I'm not sure. I voted centrist though...

A whopping 3 college credits of economics

Eh, I think I consider myself a Centrist with interventionist leanings as letting a company fall today in my opinion would be disastrous (chain-effect).


I took Princ of Macro using Greg Mankiw's book, eh.

Still technically in high school (for one more week) but I have 6 college credits in economics. Just the intro levels for micro and macro, but it's still college credit.

Generally a free marketeer, though in some cases I'm willing to accept centrist positions on the grounds that they are less bad than interventionism.

For a little perspective, BEFORE I took my economics courses, I was about as interventionist as you can possibly get. I considered myself to be a socialist, and regarded the positions of the Socialist Party USA to be somewhat of a compromise position.

No formal education, though I do like to read about economics. I'm a centrist who tends to drift back and fourth between the two extremes, though as time goes on I'm finding myself preferring free market.

I'm a Centrist currently working toward a B.S in Econ.

Somewhat interventionist, with a college(not university for you US folks) background in Business Studies, and quite well read on economics. I believe that the government is effective in taking measures to keep inflation under control, and to regulate trade, provide new jobs, provide a social security net, universal healthcare, education, etc, whilst the market is best at innovating and providing new, better goods most of the time. I don't belong to any particular school of economic thought, either. I know enough to get a good picture of what expert economists are talking about, but I'm not devoted religiously to any economic ideology, unlike some people on here.

hehehe, love mankiw... here's a laymans brushup on his ideas

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4[/youtube]

I'm a some college free-marketer... and am no longer doing economics. (did economics and finance for a year (double major))

Of course, I am a free-marketer not for it's economic credentials at lifting the standard of living... but for moral reasons. It is based upon principles of individual rights... and THAT is why I am a free-market advocate.