Greenfeld contrasted the rapid economic growth of Japan and Germany with the more moderate growth in France. In the early nineteenth century, France seemed motivated to catch up economically with Britain. But after a time, this enthusiasm waned. People discovered they valued other things—rights, freedoms, democracy, even the peasant way of life—more than pride in being an economically powerful nation. Greenfeld sums up: The only certain threat to economic growth is a change in motivation—a reorientation of the economy to other goals, or simply away from growth, as a result of waning nationalist enthusiasms. (Greenfeld 2001, 474-5)