I can understand that you think in specifics but think for a second about the general value principles behind e.g. digging oil out of the ground. The value is

I can understand that you think in specifics but think for a second about the general value principles behind e.g. digging oil out of the ground. The value is the oil, the cost is the work for extraction and the pollution. Somebody having done the work to get out the oil is attributed credits because they did the work, had the cost in this referential way that you complained about below. How many credits they get is determined by demand and supply, where theoretically everybody looks at all the costs and utility and comes up with their idea of a price and then the market clears. Now, then problem evidently is: We didn’t consider the costs your extraction put on all of us, the pollution. It was just “nah it’s fine”, but all things considered it’s not. Maybe the calculation is so bad that you now owe us for putting this cost on us - which would incentivize nobody to do that again. But we didn’t do it, and we gave you so many more credits than you deserved on all rational arguments that the whole picture is skewed.