>>513951560
Finance is literally a service, retard(financial services). The only other sectors are industrial and agricultural.

>Ireland
Ireland is just a tax-shelter for international corporations/financiers. Productivity has nothing to do with it. Moreover, Ireland's supposed GDP growth has actually left the Irish people poorer in absolute terms because most of their money goes to the speculators who profit from asset inflation(see Rent-Seeking).

In any case, you need productivity insofar as you need products to consume. In the case of Europe, you also need products to export since Europe has no resources of its own. Thus Europe "survives" on the difference between imported commodities and exported products. But this arrangement requires cheap commodities, access to foreign markets, and little to no competition.

In any case, Europe has been propped up by the United States. Not only through our financial system, access to our markets, etc. But also through America's foreign-policy, access to cheap commodities, no real foreign competition(until China), etc.

You seem to think the world as we know it is a product of market competition. No. It's a product of a managed global economy, trade deals, subsidies, dollar hegemony, monopolization of resources/markets, and the blocking of competition through extortion, war, etc. And this has been the reality for hundreds of years.