Michael,
The distinction between "manufacturing" and "agriculture" or "forestry" in statistics is mainly conventional, and based on the output classification of resident enterprises operating from a definite location. Conceptually, if you look at the social, institutional and economic processes involved, it is much more difficult to sectorize the economy that way. As a business, farming or forestry is not very different from any other business. In the real world (in contrast to the fixed Marxist-bureaucratic classifications of productive and unproductive labour), the division of labour is constantly being modified, even from year to year. It means that activities which were one unity are split up, and that other activities which were split are amalgamated in some way. Processes of decentralization and recentralization occur all the time. It is not always easy to see that in the statistics, even at a disaggregate level, and sometimes you have to refer to anecdotal evidence or industry information to see what is happening. New technologies are introduced, etc. If, say, a fraction of the jobs at a manufacturing plant are outsourced to another enterprise providing the service, it looks like the manufacturing workforce has reduced, and that the organic composition has increased, but in reality all that has really happened is that the same activities are being done under a different employer or under a different contract, from a different location. Part of the apparent decline of US manufacturing simply consists of this relocation. It helps to explain why US manufacturing output of goods has not really declined pro rata. The statistical system for counting the labour force doesn't cope very well with workers who work with multiple contracts in different locations. Marx did talk about "universal labour" to some extent in the Grundrisse, but I think you know this quite well. J.
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