Not to romanticize peasant life or traditional popular culture, but it seems to me that in 1844 "non-working time" had a distinctive character that marked it off as something other than merely not being at work. The development of capitalism has included the manufacture of a leisure time and "entertainment industry" that pathologically complements working time in a such a way that the worker no longer "feels himself only when he is not working." "Shopping" is the core of this entertainment and is suspended from both production and consumption. That is, one is not _using_ the commodity as per its ostensive use value at the time when one is shopping for it. Presumably the purchase is a symbolic prelude to the enjoyment of the utility. But not necessarily and probably a lot less than one would naively expect.
I suspect what I am trying to say is probably better explained in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I'd better read it first, though, to be sure. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
