Born on Third Base Part II

From Chapter Ten to the end of the book Born on Third Base, the author Chuck Collins talks more about specific methods for people to promote social equality, ameliorate environmental destruction, and regulate transnational business practices. Below I am going to express some of my thoughts about Collins’s ideas and provide several possible ways for us to take actions upon the issues. 

First, the concept of the Resilience Circle in Collins’s description interests me a lot, and it seems like the easiest way for people to get connected to their communities and give and receive help. Among the different organizations under the Resilience Circle, my favorite one is the Time Exchange program, which is a well-known practice I’ve heard of when I was in China years ago. People can exchange different services in the program without any monetary expenses, which not only helps low-income people save money but also allows them to use their services to benefit others. People calculate their service hours as the medium of exchange, which is the reason why the program is called the Time Exchange. In fact, this concept contradicts my intuition in the first place, because I have always been taught to value time, both my own time and others’. It is uncomfortable for me to make time/hour as a unit of exchange, since life is precious, and everybody only gets only one for only one time. However, after seeing the results of the exchange that people generate more connections within the communities and become more interdependent rather than indifferent, I finally find a way to navigate through the process and get a better understanding of the meaning of “community.” 

Second, the charity through museums and auctions attracts me as always because of my interest in art. I know that art sometimes works as a vehicle of charity for the wealthy, but Collins provides us with a totally different scenario that art, in fact, is a dirty way to escape tax responsibilities for the 1 percent to a larger extent. If I didn’t read this book, I might not feel so disappointed because I tended to accept the world as it was. But after knowing about the disadvantages of social inequality and possible ways to make a change, I really see the urgency in tax reform, closing up the loopholes in tax laws which especially benefit the wealthy and enlarge the gap between the wealthy and the poor. 

Third, I find the stories of the wealthy in the later part of the book very thought-provoking. As I mentioned in my last post, I am in the middle of the wealthy and the poor, so I insist in making money and earning a decent life independently for years because of my education. Thus, it is very interesting for me to learn the stories about how the successful people made money in their early lives and why they gave away their money to society later. Their hardworking is worthy of respect, and their dedication to society is admirable. According to my current status, it is ridiculous to say that I am going to give away the wealth to promote social inequality because I own nothing right now, but the book indeed gives me a new way of thinking about money. It also encourages me to view the world more well-rounded from different perspectives.