I think the tendency of the Protestant work ethic to find value digging holes only to fill them in again over simply doing nothing at all in the first place is quite a negative thing; that's not the same thing as saying hard work in general is a bad thing, just that it's both the hard work and the ends it's being put to that are important rather than work itself being intrinsically a good thing.

I think there's nuances here, I imagine we can all agree that the Victorian workhouse is not an institution anybody ought to revive for example while also appreciating that not all hard work has to be exploitative.