Working is so much more than being a “wage slave”.
Women had to work anyway, except that it was isolated, lonely and without respect. Try to spend your (entire) existence cooking, cleaning and looking after kids while having a good set of brains. It will destroy your soul.
Being an educated “wage slave” is a massive improvement. Work in any way shape or form cannot be avoided. Not because it is physically necessary, but because of who and what we are.
The actual problem is not "destroys your soul", but rather the fact that women working for home have no financial autonomy; they depended on their husband entirely. Divorce was worse than losing your job.
"Nobody works" is a bit naive, indeed. "Nobody has to work, but can if they want" is a bit more realistic, but I believe a not-so-bad possible future is "nobody has to work, but you have to compete with others to get the job you want". Capitalism and workers would have to stop being 19th century husband and wife, though.
This could be helped by the challenge ahead of us: managing the stabilization of world population count. We've been talking about the necessity to do that for years, just like climate change - and just like climate change it will eventually happen, inducing slow changes in our societies.
World population is rising, but most prosperous countries have falling birth rates and are either shrinking, or barely kept from shrinking by immigration.
This is a problem. It means many more people are born into poverty and a life where they will barely scrape by, whilst the people with any kind of access to effective production get fewer, and spend more time taking care of dependents than on improving the lives of others.
We don't just need to drop birth rates in poor countries (by reducing child mortality, and increasing prosperity). We also need to increase birth rates in the prosperous countries.
Women had to work anyway, except that it was isolated, lonely and without respect. Try to spend your (entire) existence cooking, cleaning and looking after kids while having a good set of brains. It will destroy your soul.
Being an educated “wage slave” is a massive improvement. Work in any way shape or form cannot be avoided. Not because it is physically necessary, but because of who and what we are.