If a particular group — a family, a nation — suffers hardships, it’s not because earlier members of that group created bad kamma. It’s because the individuals currently in that group have bad kamma in their own individual backgrounds.

Question 19. Is there such a thing as group kamma?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu: It’s not the case that first you’re born into a particular group of people at a particular point in time and then, as a result of joining them, you assume the kamma committed by earlier members of that group. It’s actually the other way around: First, through your own individual intentions, you develop a particular type of kamma. Then you’re born into a group of people who have similar kamma in their individual backgrounds. In the Buddha’s terms, we’re “kamma-related,” or related through our kamma [MN 135].

What this means is that if a particular group — a family, a nation — suffers hardships, it’s not because earlier members of that group created bad kamma. It’s because the individuals currently in that group have bad kamma in their own individual backgrounds. And remember: People are not always reborn, life after life, in the same family, ethnic group, nation, gender, or even species. Sometimes a person goes from a class of oppressors to a class of the oppressed, and sometimes back. The Buddha’s image is of a stick thrown up into the air: Sometimes it lands on its base, sometimes on its tip, sometimes smack on its middle. We’re slippery characters, changing roles all the time [SN 15:3, 9, 11–12, 14–19].

~ Karma Q & A, a Study Guide

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