Having been quite the slacker, I assure you there are massively diminishing returns to leisure time, unless you turn it into work. If you don't get anything done, you feel worthless. Maybe 20 hours a week is enough, but no work at all isn't good for you. Rioting in the streets is exactly what the welfare class of Britain did mere months ago.
Art and study could certainly be more heavily subsidized, though. But I would count those as types of work.
Agreed with parent that this is basically a Puritan attitude. This idea that one creates self-worth via work is not anything like a cultural absolute. One of my favorite things about Balinese culture is that they don't have the idea that poverty is vice.
Maybe it's a Puritan attitude, but is it wrong? Who cares about cultural universals; if the Balinese are happier as impoverished slackers, live and let live.
Art and study could certainly be more heavily subsidized, though. But I would count those as types of work.