the hive society already exists in the insect world, it exists in asian societies to a certain extent but it also exists in crowds, i've felt it, a weak force but that's because it's primitive. like baxter's idea at some point in time it may be a necessary evolutionary leap, although i am dead against it and can't think of anything worse. 
the drone lifestyle is something i have always found utterly disgusting and referred to in my older posts as 'zombie' there is a total shut down of consciousness, and separation of identity, the workers follow their impulse for the good of the tribe, the queens lay eggs, each element has no idea about the other, there is no king, just the hive. hive society war with other hive society, and the climax of baxters book we can see the bigger picture, he's achieved something here, i really found it quite original and true to the ethos of science fiction, challenging and shocking, yet utterly relevant.
i ascribe to groucho's maxim, 'any club that would have me as a member is not worth joining.'
the idea of this type of society is becoming more and more real, it is of course the socialist system, and although i don't like the alternatives this by far is one of the worst. there can be no society that succeeds unless it offers diversity, humanity cannot survive anything without this quality, which explains why diversity in society works over mono culture. diversity cannot be said to be the same as multi culturalism, multi culturalism is a very weak concept in comparisin and negates diversity, for under multi culturalism we assume all cultures are equal, and that is a misconception. cultures are not equal. this is where our political leaders have failed, because they have subscribed to the political correctness, they have swallowed the lie because it's flavoured with sugar coated idealism, yet it fails time and time again.
hive societies are for people who don't have a vision of the self, it's for the selfless, those who are prepared to do their task without knowing or asking why. and while this suits a lot of people and they will find happiness within it as a worker ant or a social engineer, it's not something i would want to subjugate to.