For thousands of years, work was something the peasants and the poor people did. An excellent trick pulled recently was to convince many of them that there was such a thing as a "work ethic" and that it was good and right and honourable.

It is good and right and honorable to not be a strain on others if you are capable of doing the work.

Just because some people have taken advantage of that to get others to work for them doesn't mean work or work ethic in and of itself is bad.

The level of work required to "not be a strain on others" is far less than the level of work expected these days, I believe.

By that measure, leprosy and the black death were "endurable and honorable" for humans. Or, to give a somewhat more Biblical example, so was war.

Work may have been around for thousands of years in one form or another, but I don't think it'd be unfair to say the nature of work has changed with the industrial revolution.

Further, just because something's been "endurable" for thousands of years doesn't necessarily make it good, or invalidate attempts to change it. And "honorable" is all about cultural values.