I for one have been jaded by the importunity of the ongoing back-to-back economic crises.

Well, maybe I shouldn't expect peace of mind to be the norm of economic life. Instead, I must expect chaos and disasters to be it.

Where potatoes are sold loose, the price of each is much higher than their counterparts in bags.

Does the same thing apply to the labor market? No, it doesn't add up.

How much has China been defined and shaped by the grisly 'Cultural Revolution' between the 1960s and 1970s in the country?

I believe the good social fabrics had been largely broken and then wild Capitalist social fabrics and values sprung up and filled the places left by those broken ones.