I’ve followed your side discussion with some interest; please allow me to weigh in. I’ll cut right to the chase.
1rudeboy is right and entropy12 is wrong.
Services* do indeed create wealth.
To begin with, every one of the items in entropy12’s list includes many embedded services. Mining companies use lawyers and accountants. These services may be embedded (provided by employees), or they may be purchased from contractors. Either way, they contribute to the mining activity.
The same thing applies to the other three items on the list. We can also add retail services (and wholesale, etc.)
Furthermore, “services” include such things as transportation. What good would mining do, if there were no means of transporting the minerals to the manufacturers? Does it matter whether the transportation service is embedded withing the mining company, or contracted out to independent trucking companies? Of course not!
entropy12 is correct about the repairing of hurricane-damaged properties. That’s an example of the “Broken window fallacy”, which has been explained quite well in other posts. However, that’s not what you two have been debating — and it absolutely does not belong on entropy12’s list. It’s in a different category altogether.
*Assuming that we’re discussing services provided by the private sector (i.e. willing buyers and willing sellers), and not the government sector, where anything can be wasted.
As you say, an interesting side discussion.
I’d like to, tentatively, suggest that not all services, and for that matter, not all of any of the other categories mentioned, create (new) wealth.
During the days of the USSR, lots and lots of manufacturing went on, creating “stuff” that nobody wanted. Did the manufacturing of this stuff “create wealth?” I seriously doubt it. In fact, I would suggest that the time, energy and materials sunk into making this stuff reduced the country’s net wealth.
Same with services. The most obvious example is governmental regulation. Much though not all of the effort expended in these services reduces the net wealth of the economy. But of course there is a great deal of consulting and other purely private business services that reduce wealth creation.
I’ve often wondered if it would be possible to create an accurate net wealth creation index for economic activities, organizations and individuals. An activity that is entirely positive in creating wealth would be scored at +100, while one that is entirely negative would be scored at -100, with of course when consumption of wealth and generation balances, the score would be 0.
My employer of 23 years also employed a battery of accountants and a few lawyers.
Both contributed ZERO to making the product better, cheaper to produce or easier to sell. Just the contrary, both groups were a big drag on the bottom line. The accountants were necessary due to government requirements to figure exact taxes, depreciation etc. The lawyers were there to defend us against frivolous law suits, which they performed well. However again, it did not improve the product, make it more reliable, or cheaper to produce by 1 red cent.