> What's the objective cost of one hour of work painting a house?
You answered your own question. It cost one hour of house-painting labor. You have an action and a measurable duration. It doesn't get much more objective. How much you or someone values that labor is subjective, but the labor itself objectively happened.
And if I want you to paint my house, what does it cost me? The objective cost doesn't matter, what matters is what others are willing to exchange for it. I could spend ten hours of back-breaking effort digging a ditch, but if nobody wants a ditch, then it has no value. And if it's just for me, that's not economic activity. Economics involves exchanging goods and services.
How could anybody run a business if they don't know what it costs to make something? How is stating something so incredibly obvious and simple so difficult for you to understand?
Bank: What's your business plan?
Loan applicant: I don't need one! Costs are subjective lol!!1
> So explain what it costs a business to make something in non-monetary terms.
I've just spent like 20 comments doing so. Short version: labor and resources.
> Will the bank be loaning them painting hours?
Tangential to my point, but I'm happy to go into details on how this might work. Effectively various forms of labor would have a known cost (set by labor markets) and various resources would have a known cost (beyond the labor to extract them) derived from some social price-setting process (we can just call it "democracy" for now). So if you make widgets, you'd have to demonstrate to the bank that you can do so with X resources (at R cost) using A labor at L price, and together the total cost being N (remember, we can add R + L because they both have a price value either set by labor markets or by democratic pricing, ie a common unit) and you'd have to demonstrate there is a social need for your widgets at R + L cost. If you can do so, when another company orders 100 of your widgets, they take on the disaggregate cost of your widgets (100 * (R + L)) and that cost is removed from your company's costs. So although the costs are reducible to a single "price" (an at-cost price) which can be used for effectively limiting a company's upper ceiling on costs, the actual disaggregate costs are the ones that are tracked and passed through the economy until purchase by a consumer, who is able to inspect and act on the disaggregate cost (but pays the aggregate price as a single number). Yes, I know what you're thinking, shortages, clearing prices, etc etc. Short rebuttal: the consumer might not pay the actual at-cost price based on a set of automated incentives the company follows to limit shortages or clear inventory.
So back to your question, the bank might loan them a total aggregate amount that they can spend to acquire at-cost items from the economy to transform them into widgets, at-cost.
Happy to expand...and forgive me if I've been short, but the number of people engaging who are automatically assuming I want slavery or don't know how markets or prices work is making it difficult to separate good faith from bad.
How do you compare the value of these things with other things? In capitalism that is the role of price system.
How 1 hour of house painting compares to 1 hour of dog walking, with 1 hour of a neurosurgeon, 1 hour of dish washing, of 1 hour of playing football, etc?
You answered your own question. It cost one hour of house-painting labor. You have an action and a measurable duration. It doesn't get much more objective. How much you or someone values that labor is subjective, but the labor itself objectively happened.