MORE STUFF I DIDN'T PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO

I first read the Tao-te Ching in the early 70s and I barely noticed at the time that a lot of it was advice to rulers instead of advice for individuals. Recently, I read Original Tao by Harold D. Roth and found an explanation for all the stuff for rulers.  From pages 195-96:

Drawing from them and adding a few observations of my own, I propose the theory of three aspects of early Taoism mentioned in the Introduction to this book: Individualist, Primitivist, and Syncretist. All three aspects share a common cosmology of the Way and its inner power and a common inner cultivation practice. Where they differ is in the area of political thought. The Individualist sources have little or none, the Primitivist sources advocate a minimalist government of "nonaction" within small agrarian communities, and the Syncretist sources favor a complex, hierarchically organized government that attempts to establish its political institutions to parallel the greater patterns of the heavens and the earth. It should be clear from these definitions that the one thing all three aspects have in common is the "techniques of the Way" and the philosophical insights that developed from their practice. Placing these techniques in a political context or recommending them as an "arcanum of government," as Graham has put it, in no way entails that the resultant philosophy be categorized as anything other than Taoist."