Kim Moody (born 1940) is an American socialist activist and writer on
labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
who advocates
social movement unionism, a revitalized
labor movement of mobilized and militant rank-and-file workers, rather than
business unionism
A business union is a type of trade union that is opposed to class or revolutionary unionism and has the principle that unions should be run like businesses.
Business unions are believed to be of American origin, and the term has been applied in p ...
, structured from the top down and compromised by coziness with
corporations.
Activity
In the early 1960s, Moody was a member of the
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS) in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, writing an SDS position paper on "Organizing Poor Whites" for the organization's Economic Research and Action Project. He was part of the
Independent Socialist Clubs and
International Socialists, writing articles and pamphlets on labor.
From 1979 to 2001, Moody served on the staff of ''
Labor Notes'' magazine in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
, which he helped to found in 1979.
He now resides in the UK, where he is a senior research fellow at the
University of Hertfordshire
The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...
.
Books
* ''An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism'' (Verso, 1988)
* ''Unions and Free Trade: Solidarity vs Competition'' (Labor Notes, 1992)
* ''Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy'' (Verso, 1997)
* ''From Welfare to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present'' (New Press, 2007)
* ''U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition'' (Verso, 2007)
* ''In Solidarity: Essays on Working-Class Organization in the United States'' (Haymarket Books, 2014)
* ''On New Terrain: How Capital Is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War'' (Haymarket Books, 2017)
* ''Tramps and Trade Union Travelers: Internal Migration and Organized Labor in Gilded Age America, 1870-1900'' (Haymarket Books, 2019)
* ''Breaking the Impasse: Electoral Politics, Mass Action, and the New Socialist Movement in the United States'' (Haymarket Books, 2022)
References
Further reading
* Schavione, Michael. "Moody's Account of Social Movement Unionism: An Analysis," ''Critical Sociology'' 33 (2007): 279–309.
External links
Interview with Kim Moody in ''International Socialism,'' 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moody, Kim
1940 births
Living people
Academics of the University of Hertfordshire
American expatriates in England
American sociologists
American socialists
Members of Students for a Democratic Society
Members of Solidarity (United States)
Members of the International Socialists (United States)