Is what one values dependent on personal gain?

A protagonist from a TV series said the following… Human beings have no inherent value other than the money they earn. Cats have value, for example, because they provide pleasure to humans, but a deadbeat on welfare, well….they have negative value. So ipso facto, the death of a rich man is more tragic than the death of a wastling.

In my opinion, what he said isn’t entirely true. I think value is the scarcity and efficiency of one’s productivity in meeting the public’s needs and desires. The money earned is corollary. The public pays for the productivity because the value is personal satisfaction. Although, money is not always earned, it can be inherited. In those cases, the value is decreased.

I agree with the rest of what he said. I think what one values depends on what one gains. I think welfare recipients are a negative value because they’re a cost. Cost negates productivity. Many are just a cost with no productivity. Certainly if someone like Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google) passed away, it would be much more tragic than the death of a welfare recipient.