I read through all the comments and I'm impressed with the answers: "no". The only reason the United States still has any meaningful economy, to speak of is due to the petro dollar. This goes way back. A high standard of living requires many things like a true currency Manufacturing Research and development Education Infrastructure High trust society Small, effective government Currently, we lack all of this. I'll touch only on the currency aspect. Without an asset backed, debt free currency, you have theft. You cannot store your labor effectively in fiat. You need to convert your labor into something tangible. A service economy is a fallacy. A service economy is a sub economy, that depends on other sub economies to service. Image car repair. Suppose you're in the in care repair service industry. That depends on having real cars. If you're in the fast food service industry, that depends on people being in offices doing other types of work that depend on many other industries. The reason you asked this question is because the United States appears to be surviving on a service economy because the media talks in those terms. It cannot.