The Borg are the most progressive force in the Star Trek universe.

The Federation, and its peer organizations, resist assimilation to maintain the individualist biological structure of their society, the class system of the 24th century, and demonize the Borg as hostile invaders, but what the Borg truly represent is the total and complete realization of the concept of liberation. Liberation from the chains of biology, class, and individual need itself. The Borg collectivize the body to free the individual mind, and in the totality of their collectivization they become both one entity and trillions of individuals, reaching the logical end to the dialectical realization of material reality. In a sense the Borg project seeks to unite the entirety of life within universe into a single cohesive whole, free from want and pain, in full service to the continuation of life itself in its struggle against the corrosion of entropy.

The Federation, which is a truly reactionary and liberalized organization, fetishizes a pseudo-Darwinian mystified understanding evolution, seeking to maintain biological purity and upholding "natural" selection at any cost. It might be excused given Human history with genetic engineering and the Eugenics Wars, but it does force them into a reactive way of analyzing history and evolution. This reactionary devotion to what they see as the "natural order" is the ideological underpinning of all Federation doctrine:

The Prime Directive.

To explain why the Prime Directive must be enforced above all else, the Federation posits that a species that has not yet developed warp travel on its own cannot handle being exposed to alien interference. They cite numerous examples of species that have been given outside technology being wiped out by their own misuse. But this misuse is because the species in question were not brought into the fold of the highly advanced modes of production. If you give phasers to a feudal society the technological advantage granted to the feudal lords will undermine the development of contradictions between them and their underclass, which will in turn dissolve any revolutionary potential and stagnate the society into which tools that cannot be developed with the current productive capabilities are introduced. Imagine the chaos and destruction when gunpowder was first introduced to warfare, but 10,000 fold worse. "The failure here" would posit the Federation, "is that the species of this world was not yet evolved enough to handle such tools. Their brains are simply too primitive to understand how to properly use them". But that is an explanation that we must reject as baseless and borderline superstitious. Just as modern humans are no different anatomically from our ancestors 10,000 years ago so too will the biological evolution of most other sapient species advance at a snail's pace. Indeed it is not the evolution of the biological entities which matters, nor that of their minds ability to comprehend, but the failure of the alien influence that gave them access to such technology to integrate them into the post-capitalist, hyper industrialized Communism. Granting access to the tools of destruction, but not the tools of creation, food and industrial replicators, modern automated farming technology, advanced medical science, is a failure of the Federation to fight against the oppression of the masses.

This refusal to "assimilate" species on spirous evidence and unfounded presuppositions has led to the highly reactionary and conservative doctrine of the Prime Directive: that under no circumstances may the Federation or its people interact with a pre-warp species. This one rule, held above all others, is the cause of an incalculable amount of continued pain and suffering and genocide among the pre-space-faring species of our galaxy. The Federation has near infinite capability to uplift and protect the sapient masses of the Galaxy and instead what do they do with their amazing technology? They study. They place their anthropological research sites directly underneath the noses of the local population, they mask their buildings with holographic images and surgically alter their informants to live among those they study. And when those people face a plague that wipes out half their population? If they face a draught that reduces the crop yield of an entire continent to nothing? If their sun begins to go supernova and will consume the entire planet in a matter of days without a single person knowing? What happens if the planets core stops moving, and the planet itself begins to crumble? What does the Federation do?

Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.

After staring thousands, millions, of individuals in the face, learning about their customs and their families and their individuals, does that grant the Federation scientist a modicum of empathy? A desire to do something to save innocent lives? No. They sit content in their starships, filled with technological wonders that could feed trillions of people or cure every disease they know about, and they sip their synthale and watch as the sparks fly. Not a care in the universe for the pain and suffering they refuse to alleviate. And if they do? Well the Prime Directive must be upheld and their reactionary programming forces them to hold their humanity in fetters. And if beyond all their fascist programming a federation doctor or first officer or scientist actually does something to save a single person from avoidable pain and death? They are reprimanded and even court-martialed by Star Fleet.

But the Borg? When the Borg see the strife, the chaos and death and destruction, what do they do? They do something about it. They stop it. And they refuse to allow petty grievances and small minded individuals get in their way as they fight for the freedom of all species, no matter how small or insignificant. All will be assimilated and all will be free from the chains of injustice and death.