Those who emphasize that industry still matters often quote Germany as example because it seems to have resisted the economic crisis better than most other European countries.
'Because it has remained more solid with its industrial mix and has become more future proof than the Anglosaxon model which has set the fashion for the last thirty years and has looked down on Germany with pity and arrogance, Because in Germany chimneys continue smoking and conveyor belts keep on running, and because here real products are packed and not unrecognizable financial products.' (according to Schwennicke, 2011).
Germany's present growth is mainly based on export (to China). Some claim, however, that this is happening at the expense of other (their) countries thanks to a modern version of Keynes' 'beggar thy neighbor policy'. Choosing a country as role model for economic policy is not new. Take for example the Japanese (MITI) model of the eighties and nineties. OTA, the US Office of Technology Assessment (1990) has published a report entitled 'Making things better: competing in manufacturing' in praise of Japan. (Note that Philips has 'borrowed' OTA's slogan in a slightly changed way: 'to make things better'.)