The Association of Free Collectives is a massive, safe nation, ruled by Speaker Andreas with a fair hand, and renowned for its sprawling nuclear power plants, daily referendums, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 4.942 billion Freelancers are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The large, liberal, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Arkadia. The average income tax rate is 98.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Freelancer economy, worth a remarkable 1,043 trillion Communal Credits a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is dominated by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Book Publishing, and Beef-Based Agriculture. Average income is an amazing 211,246 Communal Credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

It is not politically correct to suspect that a serially convicted burglar might steal again, Speaker Andreas's office has a newly installed Max-Man arcade game programmed by a 5th-grader, traveller camps regularly block five-lane superhighways, and passwords to nuclear codes must now contain upper and lower case characters. Crime is totally unknown. Free Collectives's national animal is the Honey Badger, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Free Collectives is ranked 281,032^nd in the world and 1,151^st in The Communist Bloc for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -11.29 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.