THE TURNOVER OF CAPITAL
THE TIME OF PRODUCTIONWorking time is always production time, that is to say, time during which capital is held fast in the sphere of production. But vice versa, not all time during which capital is engaged in the process of production is necessarily working time.
It is here not a question of interruptions of the labour-process necessitated by natural limitations of the labour-power itself, although we have seen to what extent the mere circumstance that fixed capital --factory buildings, machinery, etc. -- lies idle during pauses in the labour-process, [See: Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, pp. 256-63. -- Ed .] became one of the motives for an unnatural prolongation of the labour-process and for day-and-night work. We are dealing here rather with interruptions independent of the length of the labour-process, brought about by the very nature of the product and its fabrication, during which the subject of labour is for a longer or shorter time subjected to natural processes, must undergo physical, chemical and physiological changes, during which the labour-process is entirely or partially suspended.
For instance grape after being pressed must ferment awhile and then rest for some time in order to reach a certain degree of perfection.
In many branches of industry the product must pass through a drying process, for instance in pottery, or be exposed to certain conditions in order to change its chemical properties, as for instance in bleaching. Winter grain needs about nine months to mature. Between the time of sowing and harvesting the labour-process is almost entirely suspended. In timber-raising, after the sowing and the incidental preliminary work are completed, the seed requires about 100 years to be transformed into a finished product and during all that time it stands in comparatively very little need of the action of labour.
In all these cases additional labour is drawn on only occasionally during a large portion of the time of production. The condition described in the previous chapter, where additional capital and labour must be supplied to the capital already tied up in the process of production, obtains here only with longer or shorter intervals.
In all these cases therefore the production time of the advanced capital consists of two periods: one period during which the capital is engaged in the labour-process and a second period during which its form of existence -- that of an unfinished product -- is abandoned to the sway of natural processes, without being at that time in the labour-process.
Nor does it matter in the least here and there. The working period and the production period do not coincide in these cases. The production period is longer than the working period. But the product is not finished, not ready, hence not fit to be converted from the form of productive into that of commodity-capital until the production period is completed. Consequently the length of the turnover period increases in proportion to the length of the production time that does not consist of working time. In so far as the production time in excess of the working time is not fixed by natural laws given once and for all, such as govern the maturing of grain, the growth of an oak, etc., the period of turnover can often be more or less shortened by an artificial reduction of the production time. Such instances are the introduction of chemical bleaching instead of bleaching on the green and more efficient drying apparatus. Or, in tanning, where the penetration of the tannic acid into the skins, by the old method, took from six to eighteen months, while the new method, by means of an air-pump, does it in only one and a half to two months. (J. G. Courcelle-Seneuil, Traitèthèorique et pratique des entreprises industrielles, etc. , Paris, 1857, 2-me èd.) The most magnificent illustration of an artificial abbreviation of the time of production taken up exclusively with natural processes is furnished by the history of iron manufacture, more especially the conversion of pig iron into steel during the last 100 years, from the puddling process discovered about 1780 to the modern Bessemer process and the latest methods introduced since. The time of production has been brought down tremendously, but the investment of fixed capital has increased in proportion.
A peculiar illustration of the divergence of the production time from the working time is furnished by the American manufacture of shoe-lasts.
In this case a considerable portion of the unproductive costs arises from having to hold the timber at least eighteen months before it is dry enough to work, so as to prevent subsequent warping. During this time the wood does not pass through any other labour-process. The period of turnover of the invested capital is therefore not determined solely by the time required for the manufacture of the lasts but also by the time during which it lies unproductive in the shape of drying wood. It stays 18 months in the process of production before it can enter into the labour-process proper.
This example shows at the same time that the times of turnover of different parts of the aggregate circulating capital may differ in consequence of conditions which do not arise within the sphere of circulation but owe their origin to the production process.
