I can see how Daoism is individualistic in resisting social conventions since a person on the Way would be free of our artificial rules and expectations that are powerless, in any case, to resist nature's flow.

But this isn't modern individualism since Daoism replaces one slave-master with another. Teleological natural laws implicitly, at least, replace social ones for the Daoist. The Daoist individual isn't free to stew in her solipsistic, alienated glory. No, she's a drop in nature's bucket, meant to join with natural purposes and processes, to let go of her ego--and thus the source of her modern individuality--and to surrender to her natural impulses for the sake of "spontaneity."

I'm afraid that however this may be spiritually or cryptically framed, it entails something like social Darwinism and is thus amenable to gross "conservative" purposes.

But I'll try reading the Tao Te Ching more closely. Maybe I missed the point. By the way, I focus on Daoism's apparent contrast with existentialism, in a 2013 article, which you can find here:

http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2013/08/daoist-pantheism-natures-tragedy-and.html