Again: he is referring to intra-country variation, you are referring to inter-country variation.
From his post: "Denying the link between productivity and earnings is very important for the modern left, as their entire source of outrage is based on the view that the capitalist system "exploits" the poor. More likely, because of the modern welfare state and because of the growing importance of human capital, more resources are transferred from the productive rich to the poor than vice-versa."
If he were making international comparisons, these two sentences would make absolutely no sense. The modern welfare state does not redistributed from richer Americans to poorer Swedish. He is clearly describing only intra-country variation.
(Old debate, but still)
I would argue that claiming to refute left wing "exploitation" arguments by focusing purely on intra-country variation, as if the US economy lived in a bubble isolated from the rest of the world, is attacking a straw man. The "modern left" is far more concerned that American capitalists are "exploiting" highly productive cheap foreign labour, to the detriment of US-based jobs in many sectors. After all It's the people that don't have jobs that are the major welfare beneficiaries and don't have any capital to invest in China.
Regardless of whether this is ultimately a good thing (even those without access to capital to invest in multinational ventures get cheaper consumer goods...), the fact that on a macro scale cost of labour is related at least as much to geography than productivity is pretty fundamental to left wing arguments that the rich are having it too easy and many US citizens without access to capital wouldn't be able to afford to eat without welfare and some protectionism.
...the fact that on a macro scale cost of labour is related at least as much to geography than productivity is pretty fundamental to left wing arguments that the rich are having it too easy and many US citizens without access to capital wouldn't be able to afford to eat without welfare and some protectionism.
If only Tino (the author of the blog post) thought of that. Then he might have written this:
"There is so little demand in the labor market for unskilled people that the poor in industrialized countries increasingly don't even work full time.
The fact that the rich don't exploit the [same country] poor doesn't mean the rich shouldn't help the poor. But it's one thing to claim you are rich because you are stealing from poor people, and another to believe you have an obligation to help all members of society due to randomly having being granted more valued skills."
Oh wait, he did think of it and wrote exactly that (minus the words in brackets, which I added).
The point he is making is that if you want to argue for intra-country welfare, the argument that the rich owe the (same country) poor because they exploit them is fallacious. And implicitly, I believe he is assuming "same western country, particularly the US", since all his data is from the US.
As you note, it's the people without jobs who need welfare and it's hard to exploit someone who isn't working (only 15% of poor adults work, or even seek work). So clearly, the US poor are not being exploited.
Sure, I don't think we disagree that smart people [deservedly] earn more or that the unemployed section of society isn't offering them very much in return for their welfare checks.
But to put it bluntly, that top quartile (or decile, or however you prefer to slice it) would be a lot less rich (and the poorer Americans would be better of at least in relative terms; those not unemployable would have more job opportunities) if they were stuck hiring people on American level wages. Smart business owners outsourcing to those willing to work for a pittance achieve outsized returns far in excess of their ability to improve labour productivity[1]. Being unable to find work commensurate with their abilities as an averagely productive semi-skilled labourer reduces others' productivity below their natural capabilities. Irrespective of whether you think that's insufficient justification for wealth redistribution, it certainly means that the rich are benefiting disproportionately from chance, connections and "power" in addition to their innate abilities.
[1]Obviously this works better in manufacturing consumer goods than programming...
From his post: "Denying the link between productivity and earnings is very important for the modern left, as their entire source of outrage is based on the view that the capitalist system "exploits" the poor. More likely, because of the modern welfare state and because of the growing importance of human capital, more resources are transferred from the productive rich to the poor than vice-versa."
If he were making international comparisons, these two sentences would make absolutely no sense. The modern welfare state does not redistributed from richer Americans to poorer Swedish. He is clearly describing only intra-country variation.