At a time when many economists, politicians and business leaders argued we should prepare for the information-technology based "new economy" as the inevitable outcome of the transition from manufacturing-based to post-industrial service-based economies, Irish writer Eamon Fingleton published a book called In Praise of Hard Industries: 'Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy is the Key to Future Prosperity' in 1999. Around the same time, one leading economist wrote that advanced economies should not even consider large-scale manufacturing anymore, and leave that to low-cost countries such as China and India. Advanced nations should instead concentrate on service-based activities. He specifically pointed at Germany with its traditional industry politics and strong industrial base, where this insight was still grossly lacking.
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