By Cihan Ergul

In the wake of election time, U.S. economy grew at an unexpectedly fast pace. Numbers regarding the second quarter of the 2004 GDP showed an improvement of 3.3 percent. Even though its positive reflection on new hiring still stands as a question mark, the U.S. economy seems to be doing much better than a couple of years ago. Yet, the differences in the economic and political dynamics between the 1990s and now leads us to think that another period of high growth (such as in the 1990s) is ahead.

As we all know, toward the end of the 1990s, productivity in the U.S. economy showed a major increase with the growing use of computers and the rise of the Internet. New business segments, mostly in the IT area, quickly emerged and in return, they transferred the innovation to the existing private sectors in an effective manner. While doing that, venture capital wasn’t the only financial source of this IT era. Clinton-Gore policies regarding efforts to boost technological innovations also played a determining role along the way. Today, even though that period started an irrational bubble in the stock markets and ended in a burst, the private sector still enjoys the merits of that new economy today. More importantly, the Clinton administration’s initiative in boosting technological improvements as an economical facilitator constructed a successful base in this progress and ensured a growth cycle in the economics of the 1990s.

In the international perspective, since the 1980s, a liberalization movement entitled “globalization” mainly led by the United States has worked for the marketization of activities that were formerly considered to be included under the social responsibility of the state in many developing countries.

For years, these activities were neatly and gently maintained by international institutions. Against this liberalization movement, developing countries’ main argument was the decisions affecting all developing countries were taken without the endorsement of the local authorities of developing countries. Besides, the fact that international institutions such as IMF didn’t always maintain a successful history of service with many developing nations resulted in further alienation of these countries.

Today, as these problems persist, the liberalization movement was switched with another type of movement which aims at changing the nations and at the same time carries a bolder level of militarism. A militarism that is financed by government and its spending, which is almost $200 billion, boosts military sector. Not to forget the fact that, reconstruction process aside, the majority of government expenditure at this segment is canalized to the military sector of the U.S. economy. As we approach to the end of this Bush administration, one thing that we saw different than the Clinton administration was the fact that this administration lacked focus on the technology expenditure; it brought a new and much more tense dimension to the characteristic of political interaction between the West and East. In the unique example of Iraq, intervening in a nation where the members of this nation don’t even have a say in their own country, represents a different case but at the bottom line no liberation movement was so militarist, leaving sad memories in the common mind of societies.

At some point, economics is a heartless science because any militarist activity involves some economical extensions. As hunting for some insurgent Pesmergas contributes to military companies’ income, the death of every person cancels the future consumption of this person in a global world. Globalization has come to the point today where the bottom line of this calculation will determine the future face of globalization and any related liberalization attempts.

Finally, as voters in the next election will shape the economic and political future of the United States, they will also decide the type of interaction between their country and the rest of the world. For this reason, not only the economic performance of the United States but also what was this administration’s impact all around the world should be included in that decision as well.