Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems.

Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization, many even denying that anarcho-primitivism has anything to do with anarchism,^{[citation needed]} while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state of being through "rewilding".

Kevin Tucker is an anarcho-primitivist writer and speaker who lives in rural Pennsylvania. He is the editor of Species Traitor, an insurrectionary anarcho-primitivist journal, an editor and contributor to Green Anarchy magazine, and co-founder of the Black and Green Network. Black and Green Press and FC Press put out a book of Tucker's writings in April 2010 called For Wildness and Anarchy

He is also the guitarist/vocalist for anarcho-primitivist death metal band Peregrine.

His primary contributions to anarcho-primitivism have been the expansion of anthropological understanding, focusing on the importance of spirituality and domestication, a deep critique of revolution, and the act of rewilding. A common theme among Tucker's writings have been the consequences of domestication and sedentism among nomadic gather-hunters. The central argument being that human nature has been shaped by evolution in accordance with wildness, what Tucker calls "primal anarchy". That "primal anarchy" is exemplified by nomadic gatherer-hunter life. By focusing on the changes brought about by various levels of domestication one can see the impacts of domestication and ultimately civilization.

John Zerzan (born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time.

His five major books are Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Running on Emptiness (2002), Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (2005) and Twilight of the Machines (2008).

Zerzan was born in Salem, Oregon. He received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and later received a master's degree in History from San Francisco State University. He completed his coursework towards a PhD at the University of Southern California but dropped out before completing his dissertation. He is of Bohemian/Czech descent.

Zerzan's theories draw on Theodor Adorno's concept of negative dialectics to construct a theory of civilization as the cumulative construction of alienation. According to Zerzan, original human societies in paleolithic times, and similar societies today such as the !Kung, Bushmen and Mbuti, live a non-alienated and non-oppressive form of life based on primitive abundance and closeness to nature. Constructing such societies as a kind of political ideal, or at least an instructive comparison against which to denounce contemporary (especially industrial) societies, Zerzan uses anthropological studies from such societies as the basis for a wide-ranging critique of aspects of modern life. He portrays contemporary society as a world of misery built on the psychological production of a sense of scarcity and lack. The history of civilization is the history of renunciation; what stands against this is not progress but rather the Utopia which arises from its negation.