IT IS widely recognised that Kevin Rudd's campaign strategy is to minimise the differences between himself and John Howard. His response to the centerpiece of Howard's pitch for re-election, his $34 billion tax cuts, was a perfect example.
Rudd matched $31 billion of the tax cuts, and held back just $2.3 billion to spend on education and $400 million on hospital waiting lists.

As Ross Gittins, writing in the Fairfax press put it, "There could be no starker indication of what a Rudd government would stand for: 90 per cent same as the Libs, 10 per cent bitsy handouts for education and health."

Labor is mimicking the same "small target" strategy that it took to the 2001 and 2004 elections.

To understand why we need to look at the conclusions drawn by Labor's leadership from its federal election defeats since 1996.

When Labor lost power in 1996, a large swathe of its working class base deserted to vote for John Howard.

The result was a crash in Labor's primary, or first preference vote, to its lowest level since 1931.

In its election defeats in 2001 and 2004 its primary vote fell further. Labor continued to lose ground in its traditional working class heartland.

Labor strategists have concluded that its shrinking primary vote is a result of structural changes to the working class. They point to the decline in union membership and in traditional blue collar manufacturing jobs as evidence that Labor's traditional working class base is simply disappearing.

Even supposedly left-wing Labor figure Lindsay Tanner has claimed Labor's primary vote shrunk because "a rising tide of affluence� has created a different social context".

As a result, Labor's leadership has placed increasing influence on appealing to so-called "aspirational" voters-people from working class or small business backgrounds looking to climb the social ladder.

Mark Latham was the most enthusiastic amongst the Federal Labor leadership in chasing the "aspirational" vote. After Labor's 2004 federal election defeat he declared the party had to appeal to the "new middle class", an "army of contractors, consultants, franchisees and entrepreneurs".

But the idea the working class has disappeared is based on a fundamental misunderstanding about what the working class is.

Many people define class based on how a person thinks about themselves or how they look. But the fact that someone does or does not dress in a certain way, owns an expensive house or calls themselves "middle class" is not the best judge of their real class position.

Karl Marx's definition, which defines class based on a person's actual position within the productive process-whether they own or have control over a business, or whether they simply sell their labour for a wage-is much more useful.

This is because, at any point in time, even people who see themselves as middle class or who scorn trade unions are subject to the same real pressures from employers trying to drive down wages or take away conditions, and so can be drawn into support for workers collective struggles.

This is not to deny that many working class people do aspire to owning their own business or becoming more "affluent".

The dominance of neo-liberal ideas over the last thirty years and the decline in membership of trade union and left-wing organisations has led to many people believing that, through individual effort, anyone can succeed in joining the ranks of the wealthy.

But not everyone can become a business owner or independent contractor. Based on figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics independent contractors made up about 8 per cent of the workforce in 2004, and small business operators about another 16 per cent. This still leaves the working class the overwhelming majority of society.

That's why, when Labor campaigns around working class issues like WorkChoices or the rising cost of living, it surges in popularity.

Who is aspirational?

When Rudd formed his shadow cabinet he appointed Craig Emerson as a shadow minister for the "service economy, small business and independent contractors".

Emerson too subscribes to the claim that "Fewer and fewer working Australians resent the accumulation of wealth and more and more Australians aspire to it. They are abandoning the old worker-capitalist divide".

The theory goes that aspirationals don't share the desires of the traditional working class for a strong welfare state based on quality public health and education programs. They want tax cuts, hope to send their children to private schools and embrace private health insurance.

But the claims about aspirational voters are not based on any real evidence. Recent research by Murray Goot and Ian Watson as part of the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes attempted to investigate whether aspirational values affected people's political views.

It found that working class people who aspired to own their own business were in fact more likely to support Labor than other workers, and were not more supportive of private schools. Even people who were actually self-employed were no more likely to vote Liberal.

According to Goot and Watson, only 11 per cent of those surveyed report aims that correspond with so-called "aspirational" voters. They argue that "neither one sort of aspirational nor the other is particularly distinctive in terms of their political attitudes or the way they vote."

Labor's real problem has been its failure to recognise why working class voters abandoned the party in 1996. Various internal reviews have tried to blame union "influence" inside the party or the role of the factions. The truth is that the kinds neo-liberal policies adopted by Labor in government during the Accord years-and radically extended under Howard-continue to be deeply unpopular among traditional Labor voters.

And yet Rudd's major promise has been to continue with virtually the same policies if he wins government. That's why he is destined to become a major disappointment to the millions who look to his leadership.

By James Supple