If you track the cash to the first worker, then are all costs eventually labour costs?

It depends upon the product. Raw materials can be a significant portion of the cost certain items. For something made of stainless steel, or precious metals the labor can be almost insignificant.
Software costs are almost all labor.

No. Materials have a real cost. Labor adds to the value of the material, but is only a small component of it.

@zenvelo Ah, but are not material costs are mostly labour costs down the line? Mining is labour intensive. Could we argue that most costs are labour and tax?

@RedDeerGuy1 No, because they aren’t mostly labor and tax.

Land isn’t free, equipment isn’t free, capital isn’t free. All of those costs make up much more of the cost of mining than the cost of paying the miners. Miners are cheap to hire, that is why Appalachia remains poor.

@zenvelo Ok Thanks.. I’m letting this one go for now.

Actually, land is free. It just lays there.
1.) Someone had to conquer it first, sure, but that is labour cost (the soldiers doing the conquering). Or he was the initial owner, who just stumbled upon it, and declared it his own, uncontested. Which takes a few calories, which he obtained by labour (picking some berries and eating them)
2.) Those soldiers used weapons. Which were manufactured by labourers.
3.) With raw materials. Mined by labourers.
4.) Who used tools and equipment. Manufactured by labourers.
What do you need the capital for? To pay those miners (3), the equipment (4), and to purchase/lease the land from the current owner (1).
But in the end, at the beginning, it all comes down to labour.

“If you track the cash, to the first worker ,then are all costs eventually be labour costs?”
No.

People have already mentioned materials, and no, material costs are not labor costs “down the line” – the costs of materials are usually determined by the market for them, which may have some component of labor, but is also just the market cost of the thing. When a mine owner sells stuff he mines, he’s going to charge what the buyers he knows are willing to pay. Sure he probably pays something to maintain his operation, part of which expenses involve miners (and/or slaves) but they also involve other costs, and are less that what he sells the materials for – if he mine owner starts to see the costs start to approach what he sells them for, he’ll consider getting out of the business (or reorganizing it).

Tax was also mentioned and also isn’t labor-based.

There are other government fees, banks claiming interest and fees, tariffs, other money paid that isn’t about labor, various types of contracts, bribes, food, rent, gambling, anything anyone pays money for.

And on top of that, all payments are made based on an agreement to pay of some sort, and are fundamentally arbitrary. Think about gaming micro-transactions for imaginary hats or pets or the ability to play Darth Vader or whatever – utterly made up prices, and totaling billions of dollars in imaginary game nonsense. Next look at bank fees. Some banks charge $5 to use their ATM, or monthly fees to have accounts, or other fees that other banks don’t charge at all – guess what? They’re all made up and the basis of them is banks acting like pompous authoritative ass-hats and cartels to get people to pay them. Or the amount of labor fees themselves – all made up. Now, the people making them up and agreeing to them are part of a huge swirl of other made up prices and situations and conversations about it so that there is an appearance of them making some sort of sense in relation to each other, and there are computers tracking how much we all supposedly “have” so it seems real and we can pretend if makes sense so we don’t notice how ridiculous we all are, but it’s much more imaginary agreement-reality than it is concrete anything.

That’s the BIG ISSUE. What is the source of wealth? The capitalist will tell you “it’s investment”. Marx says it’s from the exploitation of labor. Like the Walmart heirs, you build a fortune through pocketing the money you might otherwise pay your employees on food stamps. The family did “invest” in the stores and build the business allowing for the employees labor to be exploited, but even the money allowing said “investment” is the “surplus” raked off someone’s work somewhere.

How do you measure the amount of labor that goes into a product? Does a doctor work harder than a burger flipper? Who is to decide? Costs are ultimately decided by supply and demand. Labor is just another commodity and it too is determined by supply and demand. If there was a glut of doctors then their wages would be reduced.

Imagine this oil refinery . Labor is an insignificant portion of the running cost. Sure, labor built and commissioned the facility but the big running costs now are energy and investment and shareholder obligations.

It all comes down to supply and demand. Money transfers are always between people, so you could say that each person is getting paid for their labor, but this is not a very useful concept. Because of technology, people can afford to buy more with the same amount of labor. Does that mean that cost value of labor changes? If so, then it is not a good measure of cost.

Early economists spoke of Labor Value Theory, most notably Karl Marx, but the theory is no longer used.

@ragingloli Thanks for explaining it for us , its what I have being trying to say and @all thanks for your participation .