In addition to this I'm willing to bet that a population largely engaged in the service industry, which doesn't produce anything is a discontented society prone

In addition to this I'm willing to bet that a population largely engaged in the service industry, which doesn't produce anything is a discontented society prone to revolution. I feel that this is at least part of what is happening in the UK and the US at the moment. People are disconnected by a lack of jobs that they want to do, jobs that provide tangible value, and need to blame that on something. So generally go with immigration, because it's a problem they can (try) and do something about and it must be that the immigrants who took the jobs. Truth is the country as a whole decided that they'd outsource those dirty manufacturing jobs to a lower class in another timezone. Without really considering what value they'd provide now that they don't actually make anything anymore. The country goes into decline, no longer producing anything of value, trying to suck money out of the marketing, economic and other forms of lockin they put in place (many of which would be called "service industries). Slowly, the countries actually doing the manufacturing wake up to the fact that they don't actually need that stuff.