There was a narrative that was pushed by Davos and others that advanced economies should be structured around services. I talked to economics students in Manche

There was a narrative that was pushed by Davos and others that advanced economies should be structured around services. I talked to economics students in Manchester at some point and they sneered at me, when I argued that Germany was in a much better place compared to most places in Europe because it hadn’t lost all of its industrial base. They called that thinking backward. One other reason I can think of is that a large majority of decision makers in Europe and US are non-technical and/or even openly hostile to practical aspects of industry. So everything operates with multiple levels of indirection between stakeholders and technical people.