"Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort."
Money may not bring you fulfillment, or love, etc. But currently, it can decisively solve most of Maslow's hierarchy-of-needs (with a few exceptions like illness). The unhappiness from having a hole in Maslow's hierarchy is a pretty bitter, cruel thing - especially if reaches the point of losing family members or friends.
('Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.'), for the purists.)
The argument is about the future and what it could look like. The hope of machinery is that it can free us. And yet if we look around, much of labor is rote and serves merely to sustain existence. Instead of freeing us, we are incorporated into the machine framework, and it has reduced our humanity. That's what Lang warned us about and that's what we're finding.
And half of us go to high paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted.
Beware the cultural, subconscious lie that "more money means you're happier". Plenty of low-paid people are happier at their jobs than plenty of millionaires.