"Unrestricted individualism is the law of the beast of the jungle. We have to learn to strike the mean between individual freedom and social restraint." - Mahatama Gandhi
We love democracy in the West (and its colonies). Sure, recent majoritarian uprisings have sprung up in India, the US, and the UK, but we're still faring on the liberal end as opposed to communist countries. Case in point: China, where scientists were jailed for warning people about Covid19 in Wuhan, for holding up blank pages in Hong Kong, or for trimming too often in Xinjiang. In the absence of any opposition, disastrous policies have often been allowed to wreak havoc, such as the curse of the One Child Nation or the Great Chinese Famine. Even the large scale Tiannmen protests were not allowed to uproot the Communist Party of China, whereas similar anti-govt protests in India against corruption (2011) and sexual violence (2012), made sure the grand old ruling dynasty was kicked out in the 2014 general elections.
Heck, even Winnie the Pooh is illegal in China, owing to its criminal resemblance to Xi Jinping.
But this isn't the Cold War Era. Not all Hollywood movies today have Soviet villains. Hence, I could perhaps mention the "C" word a bit more positively. Communism does have its perks. The same stability that prevents dissenting opinion in communist states also makes it easy to plan for the long term. Had the Red Army's dissent against its unfathomable casualties been considered, the Soviet Union would have long capitulated to Nazi Germany, and we would still have been saluting Heil Hitler. China's economic rise over the decades is yet another testament to the pros of communist stability. Ignoring public complaints against the arguably cruel living conditions and throwaway wages offered in Chinese sweatshops - helped transform it into the world's factory. Such stability might be one of the reasons why The Three Body Problem cites China as the lead contender in a fictional universe where humans are planning for an impending alien invasion with a 100 year notice.
Communism also has some other silver linings, such as its principled stand against gender discrimination. While the US took 140 years to go from independence to voting rights for women, China and India took a grand total of 0 years to achieve the same. I mention India because it, despite being a democracy, has a much more collectivist society than the West. Let's have a look at where the communist / collective ideology can still be useful for an otherwise democratic person.
The Western nuclear family is a perfect example of replicating their cherished democratic principles on a micro scale. Teenagers throw tantrums at parents. Parents rarely consult kids in economic decisions. The sweet age of high school earns you the privilege of your own ride, as if to metaphorically signal that you now hold the reins to your own life. The democratic family offers a freedom of choice and the right to dissent. Such individualism carries with it several positive implications, allowing radical ideas to evolve and change the course of societies. The young may very well challenge the conventions of the old, and teach them a thing or two.
A conservative Indian or Confucian Chinese family, on the other hand, resembles a communist government where elders dictate their children's life and career choices. The few speak for the many, and respect for the elders is non-negotiable. Here, power is concentrated with a select few individuals, who can, similar to a communist state, either drive up or crash down the entire family. The lack of free speech gives rise to a more homogeneous upbringing, and an unsurprisingly high number of doctors, engineers, software programmers, or product managers, depending upon the fad of the decade.
However, the lack of impulsive outbursts from adolescent members of the family also leads to more stability. The all-powerful log kya kahenge (what would people say?) acts as the ultimate deterrent against personality traits which may be individually fulfilling, but collectively unwise. In India, if you say you wish to drop out of school to become a pop star, you get a smack on the head and get sent back to study until you eventually land a stable job. In China, if you say you hate the sweatshop factory environment, you get your migrant ID taken away and get sent back to work until you earn enough money for your debt-stricken rural family. These principles are undoubtedly anti-democratic, but they work: China raised 770 million people out of poverty in the last four decades.
So far, we have considered the pros and cons of communist / collective ideologies with respect to a bunch of individuals. But individuals are rarely homogenous in themselves. Today's version of you is a little different from yesterday's, and a lot different from last year's. Our selves evolve over time, with respect to their world-views, their intentions, and their belief systems. How is power distributed between these several versions of an individual? Can they democratically build consensus over an issue, or do a few versions concentrate the decision making power?
We need self-restraints to curb possibly impulsive and narcissistic behavior of any particular self, for the general good. You're not paid your salary all at once but at regular intervals, so that at least 12 different versions of you (one at the beginning of each month) has a say in matters of expenditure. If it were all given to you on 1st of January, then that version of you has too much power. That self could ruin the year, not unlike autocratic governments do, by spending all of it on frivolities or lavish "self-serving" luxuries, such as eating expensive chocolates which pleases only one of the 365 selves! Note how such self-ruining decision might even be well-intentioned, such as investing all your earnings on a risky stock, not unlike the risky bets that caused the One Child Nation and The Great Chinese Famine.
Banks also have such democratic restrictions, such as daily withdrawal limits on debit cards. Similarly, divorce laws prevent rash decisions that could abruptly end the much needed institution of marriage, in a few heated moments. In medieval-era Islamic law, for instance, a man could have divorced his wife in a fit of rage by merely saying talaq (divorce) three times in a row! Such a concentration of power is split up under modern divorce laws, which forces a couple to spend several weeks in contemplation before they can finally part ways.
It is interesting to think of this waiting period as a plebiscite within yourself, where several versions of you will vote to decide whether they stay in the relationship, or not! Such a temporal democracy is thus an effective way of blunting out any impulsive decisions taken by a select few selves.
On the other hand, sometimes a concentration of power is indeed required to overturn what economists call the tragedy of the commons. One of Gandhiji's biggest qualms with democracy was: how do you expect a bunch of individuals each of whom votes towards fulfilling their individual motives, to somehow choose the greater good? Why should a person throw garbage into properly segregated bins, or follow traffic rules when driving? Doing the right thing when faced with such dilemmas - only helps if a sufficiently large number of people follow suit. If everyone segregates garbage properly, it saves the environment which benefits everyone. If everyone follows traffic rules, everyone benefits from the lack of traffic jams and prevented accidents. And yet, if such a large number of people were anyway doing the right thing, any particular individual's contributions tends to zero!
Traffic laws - a perfect solution to the tragedy of the commons.
The tragedy of the commons is also observed in the time dimension: Why must I exercise today, knowing that I can only build muscle / lose weight if I do so daily. And since "me exercising today" should theoretically be independent of "me exercising tomorrow" - the contributions of exercising on any individual day tend to zero! When left to our democratic tendencies, every present version of us would choose the locally optimal path of least effort, thereby slipping into the temporal tragedy of the commons, also known as procrastination.