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> Food production is a class case where once productivity is high enough you simply get fewer farmers.

Yes, but.

There are more jobs in other fields that are adjacent to food production, particularly in distribution. Middle class does not existed and retail workers are now a large percentage of workers in most parts of the world.

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Sure, but when farmers where 90% of the labor force many of the remaining 10% also related to food distribution and production, a village blacksmith was mostly in support of farming, salt production/transport for food storage, etc.

Food is just a smaller percentage of the economy overall.

Was there ever a time when 90% of labor was in farming and we had anything resembling an economy?

I would have assumed that if 90% of people are farming its largely subsistence and any trade or happened on a much more local scale, potentially without any proper currency involved.

Globally perhaps not as fishing and hunting have been major food sources in antiquity especially when you include North America etc. Similarly slavery meant a significant portion of the population was in effect outside the economy.

That said, there’s been areas where 90% of the working population was at minimum helping with the harvest up until the Middle Ages.

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