Thank you for this excellent response.

The first part made me think that in the past when church was so dominant and had to get people to work for them, this philosophy would have done the trick.

   'Hard work is its own reward'

This unfortunately brought the "Work will set you free" quote to mind but I'm not in a position to further comment on it.

I think people in power (Churches, Politicians, CEOs) would always try to portray work in this light as it is inherently valuable for them. I think this might be the case too with the older folks calling Millennial entitled brats.