I'm convinced this is just another Protestant work ethic as secularized by capitalism, ala Max Weber. Each generation is supposed to work hard and devote everything (or almost everything) so their kids have it better, but who gets to say, I have it better, I'm not going to work hard anymore, so I can enjoy some of it? How the public general treats people who have amassed enough to live on but don't actively have a job, seems a testament to the religious foundations and origins of the idea, rather than anything drawn from what might be called reason.