I do think that many (most?) people would be able to learn to program to the point where they can make a good living, in an age where it's harder and harder to make a good living doing anything.
But I've been passionate, at least in some definitions, about programming since I was a young teen. Before that, even, if you count simple programming. Passionate may not be the right word, though. Obsessive might be better. Or driven. I can't not learn about programming.
But I try not to claim that everyone has to be passionate or obsessive or whatever. Yes, I am. And yes, I'm quite a good developer. But I've worked with and encountered plenty of people who get the job done and who clearly aren't passionate about code. And they're making a fine living at development.
Low-skill jobs are going away en masse over the next 50 years. Maybe new jobs will magically come in to replace them, but I don't think so. Not all of them; not this time.
And so discouraging people from learning to program may be discouraging them from learning the one skill they can pick up in a reasonable time frame that keeps them from collecting welfare while working at WalMart.