Professor Stephen Sinclair, co-director of the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit at Glasgow Caledonian University, delivered his inaugural Professorial Lecture on Tuesday, May 14. The lecture outlined the harmful and divisive social and economic effects of widening inequality and argued that the Common Good can only truly be advanced by rejecting the current amoral economic model, based on spurious ‘individualism’ and a misrepresentation of so-called ‘free’ markets. Professor Sinclair called on policymakers and economic systems to reconnect with the same moral philosophy seen in the work of Adam Smith. He said: “Widening economic inequality and political divisions pose very real threats to social cohesion and in fact to democracy. It is essential to understand the ideologies which have generated these threats, and what is required to re-moralise our political and economic systems so that they truly benefit the common and not merely aggregate good." “The lecture is not technical nor aimed at a specialist audience. It will be of interest to anyone concerned about the economic factors underlying today’s febrile and toxic political climate, and the economic and moral principles required to address these."