Although politicaly speaking I believe in collectivism, I see this bypole as a yin/yang. Neither is usefull or desirable in its extreme form. Individuals cannot deny society and live on their own (or even reproduce) and collectives who disregard for the individuality and the uniqueness of their members are totalitarian and ineffective on their purpose at the least. Also such collectives would be easily taken over by individualistic purposes and abused at the expense of the people and/or the collective as a whole.
I like the idea of 'open collectives' where individuals are free to participate or not. They can have their rules and organisation structure but these are not binding. Instead there is a reward of part of the pie for those who do. (In pedagogics, it is like rewarding a desired behaviour rather than punishing undesirable behaviour.)
So I guess that even though I'm a collectivist I hate totalitarianism and I want my individual rights and freedoms. I want to contribute to the community, I don't want to be forced into labour.
I have seen such collectives work and in fact be profitable in times of crisis. In fact I am co-operating right now with a few such collectives the members of which function very well with each other. One is an importer and distributor in 'solidarity trading' (similar to fair trade but less profit oriented) and the other is the largest drum and bass party collective in town. Both examples have collective ownership/property but their members still maintain their own property, some have second jobs, some well-off people contribute voluntarily. Profit is made both for the collective as a 'legal person' and the individuals participating. Both the participating individuals and the collectives are expanding and bring more individuals within the collectives. Also, such collectives are loosely connected with each other - both in collective and individual level, forming a network. The purpose of this network is to support its members when needed. First of all, we trying to form a full producer-to-consumer network, parralel to the state economy with the purpose of making it/us self sufficient from government policy. We're half way there already. In case a part of the network is arrested (we're anarchist and we're targeted by the police), the rest gather money to bail them out and provide lawyers. The 'network' also supports people in need outside of itself. Both with money and by anti-information.
From my point of view, the question that started this thread is a trick question. There is no 'VS' between collectivism and individualism. The two can be very compatible with each other. You just have to look at problems arising one at a time and solve them with non-binding rules. Usualy explaining the problem to all of its extent to the members is enough to solve it through a democratic conversation. Believeing in each other is as vital as it gets.