CrimethInc.

CrimethInc., also known as the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective or CWC, is a decentralized anarchist network that combines publishing, political education, cultural production, direct-action advocacy, and community organizing. It is not structured like a conventional company, nonprofit, or membership organization. Instead, the CrimethInc. name functions as an anonymous or semi-anonymous banner that can be used by autonomous cells and individual participants whose work broadly overlaps with the collective's anti-authoritarian politics. The project emerged from the North American hardcore punk and anarcho-punk milieu in the mid-1990s. Its immediate predecessor was Inside Front, a hardcore punk and anarchist-action zine. In 1996, the project began operating under the CrimethInc. name. The term is a satirical reference to George Orwell's concept of thoughtcrime and to the contradictions of revolutionary propaganda. Participants use the name to encourage people to challenge established ideologies, institutions, work arrangements, gender roles, political representation, and consumer culture rather than to promote a single fixed doctrine. Publishing has remained one of CrimethInc.'s central activities. Its output has included books, pamphlets, posters, stickers, zines, music releases, documentaries, and online articles. Better-known titles include Evasion, Days of War, Nights of Love, Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook, Expect Resistance, To Change Everything: An Anarchist Appeal, and Fighting for Our Lives. The collective has also published Inside Front and Rolling Thunder, an anarchist journal associated with the North American punk and anti-capitalist scenes. Some of its material has circulated in activist networks and has been assigned or discussed in academic courses concerning anarchism, social movements, political theory, and subcultural politics. CrimethInc. has also organized campaigns, tours, conventions, workshops, and cultural events. Its annual summer gatherings, known as convergences, brought together participants for discussions, skill-sharing, mutual aid, performances, political education, and direct-action planning. The events were intentionally organized by different local groups and were not centrally controlled. Activities associated with cells or individuals using the CrimethInc. name have included anti-globalization campaigning, opposition to representative democracy, support for workplace resistance, protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Reclaim the Streets actions, Critical Mass events, and the recurring Steal Something From Work Day campaign. The network has maintained links with anarcho-punk musicians, touring theatrical groups, anti-capitalist organizers, and related publishing projects such as the Curious George Brigade. Individual participants adopting the CrimethInc. label have also been associated in reporting with more confrontational activity, including hacktivism, riots, property destruction, and arson. These activities have generated national media coverage, academic analysis, praise from some anarchists, and criticism from others. Because the collective is decentralized and contributors are often anonymous, responsibility for any particular action cannot automatically be attributed to CrimethInc. as a unified organization. CrimethInc.'s philosophy emphasizes autonomy, experimentation, prefigurative politics, and the creation of livable alternatives to capitalism and state authority. Its frequently stated position is that it has no permanent platform beyond the evolving similarities among participants' aims. The collective has advocated mutual aid, radical community organizing, refusal of work, anti-authoritarian culture, and resistance to commodification. It has also promoted permissive or anti-copyright approaches, including the N©! license, which grants broad rights to individuals while restricting corporate use. Today, CrimethInc. remains primarily an activist publishing and communications network rather than a conventional commercial brand, with its website serving as an important outlet for texts, reports, campaign materials, and media.

CrimethInc. developed within the North American hardcore punk and anarchist subcultures of the 1990s. Its early form was Inside Front, a zine that connected hardcore music with anarchist politics and practical resistance. The project adopted the CrimethInc. name in 1996, presenting itself less as a formal organization than as a network of autonomous participants who could publish, organize, or act under a common identity. The collective's publishing program quickly became its most durable public function. It produced zines, pamphlets, posters, books, recordings, and later online materials intended to make anarchist ideas accessible through practical advice, cultural experimentation, and polemical writing. Works such as Evasion, Days of War, Nights of Love, Recipes for Disaster, Expect Resistance, To Change Everything, and Fighting for Our Lives circulated well beyond the punk scene. Fighting for Our Lives reportedly reached hundreds of thousands of printed copies by 2010. CrimethInc. also issued the journal Rolling Thunder beginning in 2005 and distributed music and documentary media connected to anarchist and anti-capitalist movements. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, cells and participants became involved in campaigns opposing globalization, representative democracy, workplace exploitation, and state authority. Publicized examples included Unabomber for President, Don't Just (Not) Vote, publicity around the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in Miami, and Steal Something From Work Day, which was promoted as a symbolic challenge to workplace exploitation. Other individuals using the CrimethInc. label were associated in public reporting with hacktivist attacks, property destruction, arson, and militant environmental or anti-capitalist activity. Because the network has no central membership roll or command structure, its publications and campaigns are more readily attributable than every action carried out by people using its name. Beginning in 2002, CrimethInc. hosted annual gatherings called convergences. These events were organized by changing combinations of local participants and commonly included workshops, performances, mutual-aid activities, political discussions, and direct-action training. The gatherings attracted participants from across the United States and occasionally generated related street actions. The 2006 convergence in Winona, Minnesota, received national magazine coverage, while the 2007 event in Athens, Ohio, included a street party that resulted in arrests on minor charges. FBI informants attended several convergences, including events in 2004, 2005, and 2008; information gathered by informants was later connected in reporting to prosecutions arising from environmental and protest-related cases. The collective's work also expanded through relationships with anarcho-punk bands, touring performers, documentary makers, and related publishing groups. Its materials connected cultural production with political organizing, arguing that art, music, publishing, and everyday life could all become forms of resistance. CrimethInc. drew on anarchist traditions and the Situationist International while rejecting a stable ideological platform. Its participants emphasized autonomy, experimentation, anti-capitalism, mutual aid, and the effort to build alternatives in the present rather than waiting for a final revolutionary rupture. In 2010, CrimethInc. announced We Are Everywhere, a national series of tours and events that took the place of the customary convergence format. In 2015, it undertook a related two-month United States tour promoting To Change Everything. The collective continued to publish through its website and associated cells. A downtown Olympia publishing location burned in 2021. In 2022, Twitter suspended or banned the CrimethInc. account following Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform, an action the collective described as political censorship. CrimethInc. continues to operate as a decentralized communications and publishing network whose public identity is maintained through texts, media, campaigns, and autonomous local activity.

• 2022

  Twitter account banned

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  Twitter bans the collective's account after Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform.

• 2021

  Olympia publishing location burns

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  A downtown Olympia location associated with CrimethInc. publishing is destroyed in a fire.

• 2015

  To Change Everything tour

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  CrimethInc. conducts a two-month United States tour connected with its To Change Everything campaign and publication.

• 2010

  We Are Everywhere campaign announced

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  National tours and events replace the traditional convergence format for a period.

• 2007

  Athens convergence produces arrests

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  An impromptu street party during the Athens, Ohio, convergence results in arrests on minor charges.

• 2005

  Rolling Thunder launches

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  The collective begins publishing Rolling Thunder, an anarchist journal focused on radical politics and dangerous living.

• 2002

  Annual convergences begin

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  CrimethInc. starts hosting annual open gatherings combining workshops, performances, mutual aid, political discussion, and direct-action organizing.

• 1996

  CrimethInc. begins operating as a collective

  [1]CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org

  The project that developed from the Inside Front zine adopts the CrimethInc. name and begins functioning as a decentralized anarchist collective.

Decentralized anarchist publishing and organizing network focused on anti-authoritarian politics, radical community organizing, cultural resistance, political education, and autonomous action.

• Book

  Days of War, Nights of Love

  A major CrimethInc. book that combines anarchist political argument, cultural critique, and practical encouragement toward personal and collective resistance. It exemplifies the collective's preference for provocative, accessible propaganda over formal organizational doctrine.

• Book

  Expect Resistance

  A collection associated with CrimethInc.'s anti-authoritarian publishing program. The work presents resistance as an ongoing practice embedded in everyday life, culture, and social relationships rather than as a single future event.

• Book

  Evasion

  A widely circulated text associated with CrimethInc.'s refusal-of-work and anti-consumerist themes. It became one of the collective's best-known examples of autobiographical and polemical writing aimed at readers questioning conventional employment and social conformity.

• Practical handbook

  Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook

  A practical anarchist handbook presenting ideas and methods for organizing, mutual aid, protest, culture, and everyday resistance. Its format reflects CrimethInc.'s effort to make political participation actionable and decentralized.

• Pamphlet and multimedia campaign

  To Change Everything: An Anarchist Appeal

  A concise anarchist appeal distributed in print, digital, and video forms. It introduces CrimethInc.'s critique of the state, capitalism, and representative politics while presenting social transformation as a process of building alternative relationships and institutions.

• Pamphlet

  Fighting for Our Lives

  A high-circulation political pamphlet intended for broad distribution within activist and anarchist networks. Public reference material reported that approximately 650,000 copies had been printed by 2010.

• Zine

  Inside Front

  A hardcore punk and anarchist-action zine that preceded the formal use of the CrimethInc. name and helped establish the project's relationship with music, subculture, and political activism.

• Journal · 2005

  Rolling Thunder

  A half-gloss anarchist journal launched in 2005 under the subtitle An Anarchist Journal of Dangerous Living. It combined political writing, movement reporting, and cultural material and reached at least eight issues by 2009.

• 2015To Change Everything

  United States

  A two-month tour promoting the To Change Everything publication and its critique of state power, capitalism, and representative democracy.

  Outcome. The tour expanded distribution and public discussion of CrimethInc.'s anarchist political framework.

  Source
• 2010We Are Everywhere

  United States

  A national tour and events program organized as an alternative to the traditional annual convergence model.

  Outcome. The campaign extended CrimethInc.'s touring, educational, and networking activities across multiple locations.

  Source
• 2003Free Trade Area of the Americas protest support

  United States

  CrimethInc.-associated cells provided publicity and organizing support around protests against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement in Miami.

  Outcome. The activity contributed to the collective's visibility within the anti-globalization movement; no single organizational outcome is established.

  Source
• Steal Something From Work Day

  United States · International

  A recurring April 15 action promoted with other anarchist and anti-capitalist groups as a symbolic protest against workplace exploitation and the unequal distribution of economic value.

  Outcome. The campaign became a recurring piece of anti-work and anti-capitalist activist culture.

  Source

• 2022

  Respond to Twitter account banOther

  Background

  Twitter banned the CrimethInc. account after Elon Musk acquired the platform, with public reporting linking the action to pressure from Andy Ngo.

  Action taken

  CrimethInc. publicly criticized the ban and argued that Musk had acquired Twitter in part to silence opposition.

  Aftermath

  The dispute underscored the collective's dependence on contested commercial communication platforms while reinforcing its criticism of centralized media power.

  Source

• 2010

  Replace the standard convergence format with touringStrategy

  Background

  CrimethInc. had used annual convergences since 2002 but sought a broader and more geographically distributed model.

  Action taken

  The collective announced the We Are Everywhere campaign of national tours and events.

  Aftermath

  The touring model became part of the collective's continuing approach to political education, publishing, and movement outreach.

  Source

• 2002

  Establish annual convergencesStrategy

  Background

  The collective sought to connect autonomous activists through in-person political education, cultural events, and mutual aid.

  Action taken

  CrimethInc. began hosting open, multi-day gatherings organized by changing local groups.

  Aftermath

  The convergences became a recurring mechanism for networking and action, while also attracting media attention and law-enforcement surveillance.

  Source

• 1996

  Adopt a decentralized collective modelStrategy

  Background

  The project developed from the Inside Front zine within anarchist and hardcore punk networks.

  Action taken

  Participants began using CrimethInc. as a shared anonymous identity for autonomous cells and contributors rather than forming a centralized organization.

  Aftermath

  The model enabled geographically dispersed publishing and organizing while making responsibility, membership, and leadership difficult to define.

  Source

1. 1CrimethInc.en.wikipedia.org
2. 2CrimethInc. official websitecrimethinc.com