Explore "Capital, Volume Two: The Process of Circulation of Capital" by Karl Marx on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Working 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-process1, 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.