He has first-hand experience of the ascetic life. As a young man he wanted to become a priest and attended a Jesuit seminary for three years. “We could only read the lives of Jesuit saints – not Franciscan saints, only Jesuit saints. The day was Latin, mass, meditation, menial work. The Jesuit upbringing was tantum quantum: you take what you need. Less not more. It’s almost a Buddhist thought, a Greek thought. There’s a balance.”
He calls this “proportionality” and it has become a philosophy that, over the years, has shaped his world view – particularly what he regards as the excesses of market-based capitalism. “The capital game, the market game is: is there ever enough money? No … how can there be enough? But take your body – you need so much salt, but not too much. [You need] some calcium but not too much. There’s an optimum range. The right proportions. But money? No. It never stops.” He suggests a fix that ties together strands of Buddhism and Jesuit Catholicism. The market system, he says, should “be embedded in the cultural biological system”.
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There were reports in the years that followed of a feud between Brown and Clinton but Brown disputes this. “There was no feud,” he says. “No permanent enemies, no permanent friends … only permanent interests. Somebody said that. A Frenchman?” His press secretary is sitting nearby on a long, worn table that Brown calls the “monastic bench”, where he often holds meetings. “Lord Palmerston,” calls the aide, after consulting his smartphone.
“What?” says Brown.
“He said ‘no permanent enemies, no permanent friends’.”
“I’ll give you another maxim, because it’s so shocking,” says Brown, turning back to me and picking up a small red book. “This is the 12th rule of the Jesuit order.” He opens it at a page and points me to a passage that stresses the “abnegation and continuous mortification of all things possible”. “Abnegation – negate, go against. Mortify – make dead. That’s strong! That’s not the vibe of today.”