Tryna understand the LTV. I get that only labor creates value, but how do you figure the indirect labor of managing the workers? Whether it’s managed by the state directly or private citizens or elected ppl or whatever, you still need people to manage the people directly adding value, right? so how do you know how much value those people add? Maybe this is an incoherent question, idk. Linking me a thing to read is fine but i’m not gonna read more than ~15 pages b/c i think it’s a fairly simple question.
Managers provide a type of needed labor as well. However, this position is incorrectly tied to social status, wealth, and power which changes the relationship from being equitable to hierarchical.
There is lot's of manager hate in here, and it was rightfully explained why most managers do bullshit jobs. However, that wasn't the question. In a socialist society, there would be way fewer managers. Especially no "Senior Global Marketing Manager FMG". All of these jobs wouldn't exsist in socialism. But the workers would come up with some kind of chain of command and/or administoral jobs. They would vote on what the manager has to decide and what he would earn for it. Maybe they would decide they have to earn more than a worker because they have to make many decisions. They could also decide they should earn less, since they don't do manual labor. Who knows. Managers don't own means of production, they are part of the proletatiat anyway.
This is what Mondragon currently does, from what I understand. I believe they have some system of elections for the individual companies and collectively decide on pay for different roles. There's a company wide rule, however, that the pay ratio of highest paid to lowest paid worker cannot be greater than 8:1.
I think there are certain types of work that require more management than others. Like I have never had a manager at a retail job that I felt actually provided some benefit to the job, usually they just acted as snitches or productivity wardens. However on work sites that are a lot more technical and potentially hazardous (mills, factories, wells, etc.) it is very important to have someone who coordinates the work crew and organizes the project. I imagine in a socialist economy managers would be voted from among the experienced workers and held accountable for their decisions. I don't think there would necessarily be fewer managers, but the faux manager that really just acts as a snitch for corporate would certainly disappear.
I always saw management as something that should be given to people who aren't as physically abled but still capable of working.
To expand on your original question: the total cost of is the sum of all of the workers labor hours since all workers incentives are aligned. The emphasis is on the equality of all workers rather than the efficiency of production so it doesn't make a lot of sense to evaluate individual contributions.