Pet Rocks, Utility, Shopping

Instead of the continuing attention to accounting for the high market price of a relatively useless item like diamonds, Economists might try to explain why anyone would pay a penny, let alone $3.95, for a 'Pet Rock'.  The example cannot be dismissed as frivolous, since the product netted millions for its originator, a phenomenon that can just as easily be interpreted as manifesting the fundamental utter randomness of Market activity, as instantiating a Labor Theory or a Use Theory of Value.  But, it can also be analyzed as exemplifying what can be called the 'Shopping Theory Value', which recognizes Shopping per se as a pleasurable activity.  Indeed, that one of Bush's first addresses to the U. S. following the 9/11 attacks includes an exhortation to 'Go shopping!' suggests the status of it as a national pastime, if not duty or religion.  Nevertheless, the Utility of Shopping seems rarely to be considered as a fact with either Economic or Moral meaning.