People are happier having a place to live and food to eat.

No argument that the rich are con artists, in a way, but not to the extent you mean. Most jobs are terrible - raw sewage? Handing drywall? Meat processing? etc. They are awful. Robots won't be there any time soon if ever. They probably won't even replace retail workers in the next 10 years.

Keynes predicted we would be working 15-hour weeks. He was wrong because he missed that the enslavement was, in fact, the point.