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You're assuming that in the first example, they'd be unemployed. Instead, they're freed up to do new initiatives that generate new wealth that would not exist in the second scenario.

More activities across the same labor pool makes more wealth in a society than fewer activities which consume all available resources. This is why we're much richer now that 70% of workers aren't farmers.

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I agree, but in this context I think it's important that wealth shouldn't be the only measure of social value. There is plenty of wealth generation going on. Perhaps there is a greater good at one place than the other thing they may have been doing.

All hypothetical. But the point is wealth can't be the only measure of success.

Actually, what I had in mind when I wrote that was a situation where total economic activity was sufficient to meet everyone's needs (as I believe it currently is) and each employee was working 1/10th of the total time expected of the single employee. An extreme example, I'll admit, but one that demonstrates that people might be in a better situation if they have a lot more time and sufficient resources rather than an over abundance of time and no resources or an over abundance of resources and no time.

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