I have never read a competent bureaucracy into any version of Star Trek, even at its most optimistic. The Federation has been routinely shown to be corrupt (com

I have never read a competent bureaucracy into any version of Star Trek, even at its most optimistic. The Federation has been routinely shown to be corrupt (commodores in TOS and admirals in TNG out only for their own gain), incompetent (failing to defend... anything as a group, including Earth), short-sighted (stupid orders that get ignored), and criminally cruel (the prime directive). In TOS and TNG it was usually Kirk or Picard's job to correct these failings. In that sense, Trek is actually extremely individualistic. The Borg are the Trek version of a functional bureaucracy, and are shown as terrifying for their elimination of individuality. In the more cynical DS9+ era, we even get the wonderful element of a puppetmaster (Section 31) behind the incompetence of the Federation that keeps it alive to hide its clandestine activities that keep the sheep believing in their ideals. And our heroes wind up siding with them, effectively.