As for the idea that social value is measured by $$--come on, how much more VALUE is created by investment bankers who get million-dollar bonuses for selling crappy securities to suckers than by doctors or nurses or teachers, or by someone who starts a business that provides a useful service and employs workers?
Well, there are a few explanations for why the apparently useless bigwigs get the big bucks while the useful noble "suckers" (as you called them) don't:
1. The first explanation is that they produce value you don't comprehend because you have never really needed any of their services nor understand much of their jobs. This is certainly something to ponder, as I bet that many "social critics" of the left-leaning variety know jack shit about the professions that they criticize. For example, when an investment banker helps a company go public or if a lawyer helps protect their client from getting sued, yes, he creates some significant value for society in the long term, far exceeding the price he asks for his knowledge and skill.
2. The second explanation is that they don't produce value, but went to great lengths to appropriate the value for themselves. Convincing significant numbers of (important) people that they should part with their money for your benefit is a difficult and risky task by itself (and also doesn't reflect well on the intellect and business acumen of the "victims" or givers). So then, they rightfully reap the fruits of the con game, which they cleverly designed. They have produced value for themselves, and society let them do it.
3. The third explanation is that they achieved their status by applying not just trickery, but also brute force, brinksmanship, aggression and conquest, essentially being crooks (and maybe later legitimizing themselves by becoming part of or with help of a supportive government). They have produced value for themselves despite of society's attempts to protect that value.
This third case is a notable exception from the $$ = value rule. But every good rule has some exceptions to consider. Also, there is also a conceptually easy solution to keep that exception occurring: build an enlightened badass society which restricts use of force to defensive purposes only and values individual freedom above any groupthink-based ideologies that segregate people.
(This of course also involves recognizing that the freedom of one individual ends where the freedom of another individual begins, and that mutual gains may be obtained by voluntary restriction of one's own freedom toward reaching a common goal. There is no conundrum, no zero sum game, and no lurking class enemies involved here, which left-leaning commenters tend to obsess about so much.)