The collection When We Are Free, edited by Dale M. Haywood, Timothy G. Nash, and R. John Amin, is a book about freedom, as the editors note in the Preface. They state that their book is "an unapologetic endorsement of freedom and all of its corollaries" (vii), but a central issue in the book is economic freedom and how it relates to those corollaries--individualism, morality, the rule of law, responsibility, private property, free markets, limited government, and enterprise. In keeping with this theme, the book is divided into sections that develop the idea of capitalism as the economic ideal and freedom as a necessary condition for capitalism. The readings develop the ideas of the importance of property and its relationship to human life, the role of government, systems of economic organization, the specific nature of the American system, and various elements in the marketplace. The editors introduce the ideas in each section and then present the readings which elaborate on the central issue. The book is a good and comprehensive overview of the ideas presented, shaped around the agenda of the Northwood Institute, founded in the late 1950s as "an important executive proving ground for young men and women seeking careers in American and global enterprise" (xiii). Many of the readings were written for a publication published by the Institute.
The authors describe Northwood as a college with campuses in three states and with nineteen extension centers across the country. The Institute was founded in the late 1950s as a response to the launching of Sputnik, which made the founders of the college believe that in addition to education in hard science, which the U.S. then decided had to be increased, what was needed was greater emphasis on the importance of private enterprise as a means of generating innovation. From the first, the emphasis has been on the future, on how programs would operate in five year.
V. Orval Watts tra...