>Which should lead to some reflection on the absurd impossibility of
>stopping shopping, no?
Of course it's absurd. It's meant to be absurdist satire on the no less absurd absurdities of marketing and conspicuous consumption. What would conspicuous non-consumption be but absurd? The accent of absurdity, however, falls on the conspicuousness. Now, an inconspicuous anti-consumerism would not be absurd, but it would be... well, inconspicuous.
Your quote from Mandel is well taken but the operative phrase is the qualification: "(...to the extent/ /to which they are not trivialized or deprived of their human content/ by capitalist commercialization.)" and/ "...justified condemnation of the commercialization and dehumanization /of consumption by capitalism/..." The shopping that church of stop shopping is for stopping is precisely the trivialized, commercialized and dehumanized consumerism of post-lat(t)e capitalist America.
By the way, today is election day in British Columbia and it is shaping up to be a landslide for the Work Less Party in the 11 ridings in which we have candidates.
The Sandwichman