A lot of the problem stems from the question of labor and its worth. Labor in itself has no intrinsic value; any value it possesses is derived from the results of said labor.
That's one of the root problems with socialism: It's based on the labor theory of value. Which is part of classical economics -- Adam Smith used it in
The Wealth of Nations. But it was also the biggest failure of classical economists. None of their theories could explain why diamonds, which are fundamentally useless trinkets, are worth more than water, which is necessary to life. More generally, they couldn't explain why some things cost more than others, so they fell back on the idea that it was based on the amount of work it took to bring those things to market. Which is clearly wrong, because not only are workers with certain skills valued more than workers with other skills, but digging holes and then filling them again is work, but completely pointless (yes, I'm making a dig at Keynes).
More than that, accounting for different values of work, and even capital, doesn't really explain prices. That had to wait until the marginal revolution in the late 19th century, when they figured out prices aren't based on labor or capital, but on what the
next person who buys something is willing to pay. If that theoretical person has plenty of water, then they're going to put a very low value on buying even more water. OTOH, buying diamonds, even at an exorbitant price, might start looking attractive, since their basic needs are already met. (Diamonds are also scarce, so supply & demand.) This is what economists mean when they talk about marginal costs, or the costs on the margin -- it's the price a person who hasn't bought something yet, but is next in line if the prices drop, is willing to pay.
This is also why a lot of calculations that just sum up values don't work in the real world. If the current price for something is $1 and you sold 1,000 in the last year, that doesn't mean 10,000 of the things are worth $10,000. Because the people who bought the 1,000 last year were the 1,000 people who valued it at $1 or more. If someone else out there was willing to pay $1 for it, you would have sold 1,001. The 1,001th person might be interested in the product, just not enough to spend $1. So to get 10,000 people to buy it, you need to lower the price. Therefore the value of 10,000 is not 10,000 times the current price. And to bring it back to labor, wages are just another price. They're set based on a worker's marginal value to the next employer.
The marginal revolution is the foundation of literally every modern school of economics, except socialism.
And for no particular reason, I segued into a basic economics lesson....