Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous.

All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud
pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract
value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into and
inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of
greater value than the commonplace tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an
ordinary sweet. These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value – the fallacy from
which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives – and to illustrate the truth of the common-
sense definition as measured in terms of use. Robert Heinlein Starship Troopers p.96

There is an old song which asserts that ‘the best things in life are free’. Not true! Utterly false! This was
the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the Twentieth
Century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe they could simply
vote for whatever they wanted…and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears. Nothing of value
is free. Even the breath of life is purchased through only gasping effort and pain. P97