Daoist political discourse offers a tantalising vision of leaders who are somehow effective without being oppressive. But is there any way for it to work in practice? Inspired by the lesser-known outer and miscellaneous chapters of the Zhuangzi, I argue that a strand of Daoist political thought prefigured some aspects of what we now call the “wisdom of crowds” phenomenon, including the non-obvious insights that crowds can be collectively wise, that diversity is valuable, and that too much reliance on expertise or authority can be problematic. This prefiguration is not merely a matter of historical curiosity: the Zhuangzi’s discussions of leadership offer helpful and relevant observations about how to be an effective aggregator of the crowd’s wisdom in situations where quantitative methods are not an option. Zhuangzian political methods are also potentially more compatible with Western liberal democracy than Confucian ones. Finally, a “wisdom of crowds” understanding of Zhuangzian political advice also makes sense of several difficult puzzles in Zhuangzi interpretation, such as the apparent arbitrariness of Ziporyn’s wild-card perspectivalism and the text’s seemingly contradictory lessons regarding the uses of the useless.
Monday July 6, 2026 3:00pm - 3:55pm AEST Steele-3203 Staff House Rd, St Lucia QLD 4067, Australia
