Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction Games of Numbers: A Note on Methodology and Epistemology Arrangement of the Book 1. Political Governance: People's Dictatorship and the Party-State The Tragedy and the Grand Detour The DNA of the Party-State: Mao Zedong Thought Déjà vu in Beijing: Xi Jinping Thought CCP Optimality and China Suboptimality People's Lives and Rights in the People's Republic Extra-Legal Means for Extra Control Thought Work, Jingoism, Officials-Standard, and Power Fetishism The Partocracy and the Police State The Ruling Class and the Aristocracy Intrusion, Insecurity, and Intranquility 2. Economic Record: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics The China Model Incompetence and Failures: Mao's Great Famine and Stark Stagnation Three Decades of Prodigious Growth Distortions and Dysfunctions Extraction and Profligacy Quantitative Assessments of the Record What about India? A Note on Comparison 3. Social Life: Bitterness, Happiness, and Resistance A Bona Fide Developing Country Bitterness Eaters and Luxury Indulgers Inequality and Poverty Disaster Relief The Elusive Happiness Voting with Feet Watched, Worried, Wrathful 4. Spirit and Ecology: Culture, Ethics, and the Environment The Officials-Standard and Society The CCP Pantheon of Demigods and Chiefs Moral Vacuum, Amnesia, and the Mind Anecdata of Corruption Academia and Education "We All Fake It" Publication, Antiquities, and Gastronomy The Environment and Ecology Superpower of Imitation Epilogue: From the Record Notes Works and Sources Cited Index.