The Backwoods Balladeer of Axel Kane is a massive, efficient nation, remarkable for its closed borders, compulsory military service, and parental licensing program. The hard-nosed, humorless population of 2.184 billion Axel Kanes are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The large, corrupt, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Law & Order, and Education. The average income tax rate is 71.0%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The all-consuming Axel Kane economy, worth 247 trillion Lead Guitars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, broadly diversified black market in Beef-Based Agriculture, Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, and Uranium Mining. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an impressive 113,182 Lead Guitars, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.9 times as much as the poorest.

Peer pressure from cooler world leaders directs Axel Kane government policy, it takes months to get the proper permits for a child's first tricycle, edutainment video games are taking Axel Kane's students to the next level, and the serf suggestion box would work better if more serfs were literate. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Axel Kane's national animal is the Power Vocals, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Axel Kane is ranked 293,709^th in the world and 16^th in After the Fall for Nicest Citizens, with 1.34 average smiles per day.