The author directly acknowledges that money can be used to measure value: > I’m going to tacitly accept [...] that “value” can meaningfully be expressed in te

The author directly acknowledges that money can be used to measure value: > I’m going to tacitly accept [...] that “value” can meaningfully be expressed in terms of United States dollars That doesn't mean you can just sum up a bunch of dollar figures and have the total make any logical sense. Doubly so when you are arguing that the sum represents value you created and not just the values of things you interacted with. Like if a bank teller takes $5000 dollars and deposits it into a customer's account, they haven't created anywhere close to $5000 because the owner already had it when they walked through the doors of the bank. And if you add that number to the bank teller's wages and the price of a safe deposit box at the bank down the street, you haven't discovered the value of the transaction... all you've got is nonsense.