Is a classless society impossible?

Is true social equality an impossible dream? The German philosopher Dr Hanno Sauer argues that class hierarchy is a permanent feature of human societies. Old elites may fall, but new ones fill the void. Rank, hierarchy and privilege, stubbornly persists.

Hanno Sauer appears at Melbourne's The Wheeler Centre on 20 August and at Sydney's Festival of Dangerous Ideas from 22-23 August. 

• Guest: Hanno Sauer, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University, author of Klasse, and The Invention of Good and Evil: A History of Morality
• Producer: Jack Schmidt