The common good is an idea that comes from Catholic social teaching but it has universal application, never more so than in the present situation.

The idea of coming together in community, working and living, for the benefit of all, it is the opposite of the economic system that has operated here for the past 40 years, where the advancement of the individual to the cost of the common good has been the mantra.

In his latest book, The Tyranny of Merit, philosopher Michael Sandel looks at how the economic system of the past four decades has bred division and alienation, with a minority group of the privileged and educated having taken all to the detriment of the majority rest.

Sandel focuses on meritocracy, the idea that everyone can succeed if they just try hard enough. This is palpably not true. Only those with an advantage from the outset, whether that be money, education or privilege behind them, largely succeed.

Sandel cites university education as the passport to success; without it the mass of people are doomed to live increasingly poor lives.

The credentialised (degree holders) elite group have come to look down on everyone else. And it is the non-credentialised that have lost out in the great globalisation game.

The divisions are clear in relation to those who govern, with only 12 per cent of MPs lacking a degree - 25 per cent went to Oxbridge. Outside of Parliament, 70 per cent of the population don't have degrees.

Sandel is not saying educated people should not be in government but that the homogenous nature of this group over recent years has meant they govern for their own interests, not the common good.

The wider dissatisfaction and alienation that this has bred led to the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in America.

Some 70 per cent of those lacking degrees voted for Brexit, 70 per cent of graduates voted remain.

What is needed is a redistribution of wealth and opportunity across the board. Also, the reintroduction of solidarity, with people recognised for the contribution they make to society and for the common good.

This reawakening could be easier in the post Covid world, where the value of the nurse, care worker, supermarket operative and street cleaner have been recognised as being of greater value than, say, the hedge fund manager or stockbroker.

There is a great opportunity to really re-establish the idea of the common good, now that we are all in it together. Survival depends on reaching out and helping each other, not existing atomised, disconnected and working against the interests of the whole.

*The Tyranny of Merit - what has become of the common good by Michael J Sandel is published by Allen Lane. Price £20