Because the two defining features of a commodity, use value and exchange value, are more often than not contradictory which produces all sorts of social ills, not to mention, through different mechanisms depending on which Marxist economist you ask, recurring crises in the capitalist mode of production.
Consider houses for instance. A house is a basal need, yet most social formations have too few of them, or too few of am acceptable quality. When housing is commodified, as is the case in most of the mature capitalist world, it is not the social need for housing that gets homes built (its use value), but rather the potential profit gained from building it as a speculative asset (its exchange value). If there is no money to be earned the house does not get built, despite most people generally agreeing that everyone has a right to a house, as well as it being very important as the place that the reproduction of society happens in every single day. A capitalist might decide that it is better to simply buy land that lies in the path of an expanding metropolis to sell to the local government for more money later with no intention of actually developing it (no qualitative change to the use value has happened here, but money is earned nonetheless), or buy an existing apartment block, let it go derelict by way of not maintaining it, wait for the tenants to leave, demolish it and build back a new building that more rent can be charged for so that profits increase (a use value has essentially been destroyed for profit here).
Rampant speculation by construction companies and banks might turn the entire market for this use value into a giant international Ponzi-scheme and crash the entire world economy like it did in in 2008. In China right now there is a property slump because they allowed the private sector, who care only for housing as speculative asset rather than a use value, to dominate the housing sector. Meanwhile the rest of the economy that is more dominated by state owned enterprises, to whom social need (as determined, correctly or not, by the Communist Party of China) is more important, is doing just fine.
Individual homeowners, once the use value in question has been acquired, also suffer from this dual character of the commodity. Unlike other commodities like hamburgers or bananas, a house is not consumed immediately, or even in a single lifetime, and is incredibly expensive. Homeowners generally want to ensure that their ho
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.