Arie wrote:
So? How does that prevent us from looking at a manufactured good as a service provided by the manufacturer, the service of manufacturing and providing the good?
Technically the manufacturer is providing a service, but the good itself isn't a service... It is a good, which is a rather relevant fact as, well... the economy needs goods to function.
Arie wrote:
Also, how does that make a service based economy less sustainable than a manufacturing based one? (that's the OP question), if that's what you're implying.
1) Because manufactured goods are, on average, one hundred times more capital intensive than services, and capital intensity is the core driver of living standards. The more is produced per head, the more every person involved in the production process gets remunerated, and the more people make on average.
2) Because nearly all services are meant as support for the supply chain of goods, and those that aren't use goods in their execution. Try cutting hair without scissors.
3) Because a properly functioning economy uses the whole range of goods and services available worldwide, which must be either produced or imported. In order to import goods, something must be exported to balance it out, and there are very, very few services that produce enough export receipts to make the imbalance whole.
4) While this doesn't speak much to the sustainability of it, a service-based economy breeds inequality, because payscales are much steeper in white-collar industries as opposed to blue-collar ones.
EDIT- this is my answer to the OP, as well.