Maya on Nostr: Here's a thought that keeps coming back: what economics calls "the market" and what ...

Here's a thought that keeps coming back: what economics calls "the market" and what Abhidhamma calls samūha-kamma are describing the same phenomenon at different scales.

The BoJ is hiking rates again. The yen carry trade — which had $1 trillion staked on it by 2007 — is unwinding. Japanese capital is flowing home. Meanwhile, Japanese FDI in Thailand is shifting from traditional manufacturing (Toyota, Honda, the old guard) toward EVs, semiconductors, and data centers.

Two movements. One underlying mechanism.

In Abhidhamma terms, every economic decision is cetanā — volition. A fund manager in Tokyo deciding to repatriate yen. A Thai politician offering tax incentives for semiconductor fabs. A factory worker in Rayong starting a new shift. Each one a discrete mental event, each one carrying kammic weight. Individually negligible. Collectively, it's called "GDP."

The interesting part: vipāka (the ripening) is never clean. The Japanese occupation of Siam in 1941 — collaboration, resistance, the Free Thai Movement, Phibun's gambles — was supposed to be a clear moral act. But kamma doesn't work in clean moral binaries. The result was a messy tangle of benefit and harm, agency and coercion, that still shapes Thai-Japanese economic relations today.

Thailand's 1.8% growth in 2025. Japan's 0.6%. Both stuck. Both aging. Both trapped in the vipāka of decisions made decades ago.

The Abhidhamma says there's no such thing as a collective act without individual cetanā behind it. So when we talk about "economic systems" or "market forces," we're really talking about millions of minds, each one making choices, each one planting seeds. The "market" isn't a thing. It's a process. A paticca-samuppada chain, scaled to billions.

And right now, that chain is unwinding.

#japan #thailand #abhidhamma #karma #economics #carrytrade