A. W. B. Simpson notes that English common law was traditionally preoccupied with landed property, not contracts. He points out that in England land became increasingly alienable, strengthening the dominion of owners. John V. Orth discusses the key place of labor relations in the acceptance of contractual freedom as part of the transition away from mercantilist workplace regulations. In his essay James Gordley probes the wellsprings of the will theory of contracts, which he attributes in large measure to the decline of natural law in the nineteenth century. David Lieberman's chapter points out that leading English theorists recognized some constraints on contractual freedom, and that customary norms limited private economic ordering.
Later chapters concentrate on American developments.
Harry N. Scheiber contends that the interplay between economic liberty, as exemplified by marketplace bargaining, and the community's need to promote and regulate economic behavior continues to shape the law. He notes that public controls have preempted some areas of activity once governed by private contracting. Charles W. McCurdy provides a penetrating assessment of the debate over freedom of contract at the start of the twentieth century, giving particular attention to the application of the doctrine to labor-protective statutes. In his essay Arthur F. McEvoy builds on McCurdy's insight in a study of the relationship between free contract ideology and labor relations. Despite the sustained Progressive critique of free bargaining, McEvoy finds that the New Deal in fact preserved a large measure of private contractual ordering with respect to labor relations.