I'm not implying people from the past where any more productive or interested in challenge than today's (they were not). The main difference, though, is that a larger number of people leave in stable/confortable enough lives today than in the past - thus the number of people doing nothing but indulging themselves is proportionally larger...
To me, "the number of people doing nothing but indulging themselves is proportionally larger" sounds like a good thing, a clear indicator that we've come a long way - we're so well off now that you don't actually have to do anything useful in order to survive. That's awesome, to the extent that it's true.
Our goal should be a day when nobody has to work, and everything that we want done happens anyways. We're still pretty far from that, but I think motion in that direction is a positive indicator, not a negative one.
That's a very dreadful prospect of a future... And yes, I think it's a pretty bad thing.
On a related note, the book "Childhood's End" covers this topic quite well from my point of view. In the end, no one had to move a finger for anything. And it was damn boring and counter-evolutionary...
