Alan,
Sorry I cannot enter fulyl into your fine game - I haven't been on OPE-L long
enough to hazard a guess about OPE-Lers' views, without considerable trawling
through postings.
My own answer is that profit rates have an abstract TENDENCY to equalize across
branches, but there are many counteracting tendencies and contingent forces that
prevent any empirical TREND.
And that's what Marx thought too.
I have never been very good on who said what - being more interested in the
argument than the author, so I will further disqualify myself by refusing to
speculate about any 'great men' (or women - what did Rosa Luxemburg think?)
Comradely greetings,
Michael W.