The cycnicism in me insists that the the ones saying this also make money in finance; and feel that the purpose of life for everybody should be to create value - of course with an implicit exclusion of themselves; because their purpose in life is obviously to ENJOY. (The latter of course is a silent narcisitic thought that can only dwell in the privacy of the ego, and is not allowed to enter public discourse)

Finance people tell all kinds of stories to themselves about how they're actually adding value to the system with their activities.

Value doesn't have to be money. You can be nice to someone and that adds value to the world and counts as value creation. If all you do is suck value out of the world then I would argue you are a bad human being.

I refuse to accept that my life must fulfill some utilitarianism of nebulous “value,” I would sooner ascribe to a Calvinist predestination than accept that framework for living.

This suffers from a fundamental problem. If the creation of value is the ultimate good, and we are obligated to maximize that good, we could do a lot better job at it than smiling some dopamine into our neighbor as you suggest. We’re all irredeemably evil for not doing so.

That's how the gov't views you, as an economic unit = labor production.

"The government" is a massive institution inclusive of multiple separate power bases, agencies, motivations, responsibilities, and bosses. It doesn't view me as anything; parts of it view - if "view" is the right verb - as variously a citizen, a suspect, a taxpayer. Always a datum, sure, but the important metadata varies.