INTERVIEW: Jerry Brown: Learning to Live with Our Limits

Jerry Brown, onetime Jesuit seminarian, believes that sin is original and selfish instincts natural, and he also suspects that America is experiencing a “counterreformation” — against the expansive governmental policies of past years. What makes these views especially striking, of course, is that Brown, 37, is the Democratic Governor of California. In his first year in office, he has curbed growth in his state’s burgeoning governmental employment and spending. He has admonished Californians to lower their sights, prepare to make needed sacrifices instead of slaking the urge to consume, and accept unaccustomed notions of inherent limits instead of boundless growth.

That dialectic has made Brown, for the moment at least, the most popular Governor in California history. By a margin of more than 7 to 1, voters polled recently by Mervin Field approved his performance — a level of support well above Ronald Reagan’s at his peak. Brown was interviewed by TIME Managing Editor Henry Grunwald and Los Angeles Bureau Chief Jess Cook in Los Angeles at El Adobe, an unpretentious restaurant featuring the Jerry Brown special (arroz con polio). His thoughts on a variety of topics:

AMERICA’S LIMITATIONS: There is a limit to the good things we have in this country. We’re coming up against those limits. It’s really a very salutary exercise to learn to live with them. Everybody looks for politicians to come up with the solutions to the society’s problems. It really is a rather totalitarian urge if you analyze it. Maybe the answer is the Ten Commandments.

DEFINING PRIORITIES: We’re still going at things the way we went at Viet Nam. We haven’t clearly defined our goals. Take the schools. If we funded all the proposed programs in California, we would be spending $5.4 billion more on education than we spend right now. You want a liberal program to deal with that? I’ll give you one. Double the income tax. Watch the tax base decline as people move to Kansas.

STATE SPENDING: I’m doing everything that’s been suggested other than spending money we don’t have. I’m just not giving off a barrage of propaganda to make people think we’re doing more. We’ll take whatever the revenue is, spend it — and that’s it, folks.

HIGHER STATE SUPPORT FOR THE ELDERLY: In our society, the level is completely inadequate. But the assumption is that by moving their incomes up a grand or so, you can make a big splash. I wonder about that because it’s a qualitative more than a quantitative problem. The income supplement is never going to be enough if people are estranged from society. But if you have children to take care of you, friends, a nice community, it’s a winner.

RONALD REAGAN: Reagan was anti-intellectual. I’m not. His rhetoric doesn’t match his reality. He was Governor for eight years. He didn’t slow anything down. He raised taxes three times. The difference between this and other states was imperceptible.

CREATING JOBS: How to create full employment — that’s the big question. Unless private enterprise can put people to work, the Government is going to have to hire them. It’s best to do it indirectly, but I don’t really know how. Government could invest, as it did with the space program. Or Government could loosen the money supply, use tax policy or public works. There is no one thing, but Government has to play a major role.

GOVERNMENT PLANNING: It’s like setting up a commission. It just buys time and treads water. Unless you know where you want to go, it’s an illusion. Run a plan out of a Washington computer as they do in Russia, and you get a monster. We have our own tradition that combines both governmental intervention and a very diverse private sector. It should be respected.

CONSENSUS POLITICS: The political need right now is for clear definitions and statements about where we’re going. To speak clearly about what you’re doing is already a major accomplishment. The questions in my mind are the same as those in the minds of the people. The real need is to find the consensus that binds a large enough group together and articulate it. The last time that happened was in 1932, I guess.

AMERICA’S FUTURE: This is Still a very wealthy country. The failure is of spirit and insight. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think we’re up for grabs. All I can promise is to go to work early and stay very late. It’s very dangerous to assume there is a final solution.