Manufacturing plays an important role in economic development and accounts for a substantial proportion of total economic activity. In Nigeria, manufacturing companies are lagging behind when compared with their counterparts in Asia. The inability of the policymakers to effectively and efficiently develop desirable and favourable policies for the country, which require proper monitoring and evaluation account for some of the challenges facing the sector. This paper is anchored on interpretative understanding of Max Weber’s theory of social action and its contribution to the reality of how some of the selected industrial policies fit to the contemporary Nigeria. It concludes that focus should be on rejuvenating the impediments that affect sustainable development in terms of poorly created policies in the manufacturing sector, inconsistencies in tariff, inappropriate fiscal and monetary and competition policies leading to import dependence.