The pursuit of happiness is an absurdity because it is an unattainable goal. When you think of the definition of happiness, when you describe it, you realise that it can only be a temporary state. One cannot possibly be happy as a constant. What one should seek in the other hand is to be content. However, this is where we realise that the pursuit of happiness is a symptom of capitalism.

I have written before about evolution and society, where simple natural elements evolve to become complex social structures (Social Evolution). Capitalism being a system that focuses on the ever growing accumulation and concentration of power needs elements that support it in order to survive, so those that do remain and those that do not perish. And so this unattainable goal forces people to engage in the system and be trapped by it.

Furthermore, being content would make capitalism impossible because one could only be content if their basic needs, if their human rights which do include joy, were met. One is content when one can consider and accept that everything is fine, that they don’t need anything else and things are precisely that, fine. They have safety, they have security and trust in all these basic needs, their housing is secure, so is their food, their education, their health and indeed their joy as well as every other human right. Capitalism has evolved to take away those rights and transform them into aspirational luxuries. To own a house, to eat healthy, to educate ourselves or to be looked after.