This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures. This lecture in the series

Bursting at the Seams, given by Geoffrey Sacks, was originally broadcast in 2007.

Hello and welcome to the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, the erstwhile home of the Scottish Parliament,

for the last in this year's series of wreath lectures. We've chosen Edinburgh

as a finishing place because this was the city where the economist Adam Smith, one of the leading

figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, set out his ideas on how to create free markets

for the benefit of us all. Our lecturer, Geoffrey Sachs, takes some of his inspiration from Smith's ideas,

and tonight this connection comes into full view, as he explains how the countries of the world

must find a new political framework in order to manage the business of international cooperation.

So far in these lectures, he's explained how we should rebalance our world as the

economies of the East rise to match those of the West, and how we must eradicate poverty and improve

the environment, measures which are essential, he argues, for our survival. Tonight, he turns his

attention to the processes required

for achieving all of this.

He's calling for a new politics

for a new age.

Ladies and gentlemen,

will you please welcome

the BBC's Reith Lecturer 2007,

Geoffrey Sacks.

Thank you very much, Sue, and ladies and gentlemen, how grateful and honored I am to be here this evening.

The arc of the wreath lectures began in the Royal Society in London,

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