Pascal Boyer writes,

I am surprized, nay flabbergasted that there is no study of folk-economics in the social science literature. No-one (except Caplan and a few others) seems to study what makes people’s economic modules tick. In psychology we have had decades of study of folk-physics, folk-biology, intuitive psychology and the like. Intuitive economics anyone?

….humans may be motivated to place their trust in processes that are (or at least seem to be) driven by agents rather than impersonal factors. This may be why there is a strong correlation between being scared of markets and being in favour of state interventions in the economy.

Read the whole thing. And ponder. Pointer from Joe Carter.