In our civilized societies we are rich. Why then are the many poor? Why this painful drudgery for the masses? Why, even to the best-paid workman, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the midst of all the wealth inherited from the past, and in spite of the powerful means of production, which could ensure comfort to all, in return for a few hours daily toil? - Peter Kropotkin (1892)
Is it?
If this were the middle ages, then yeah, sure. But modern society is at the point where vast sums of wealth are hoarded by billionaires (who I must point out, do not work as you or I would generally know the word to mean). Huge swathes of land has been industrialised, producing more and more every year with the current system requiring infinite growth.
We are at the point where basic needs can be met with ease. My home is over a hundred years old, and new ones are made every day. Homelessness is not a supply issue, not truly. Homes are hoarded, left empty, left to rot, in the hope of making more profit in future. There's a supply issue only because humans have decided so, not because we don't have enough homes.
The same can be said for food. The main employ of the population used to be agriculture because all those people were needed to feed the population. Now a tractor can do in a few hours what would take many people many days. The amount of people working in agriculture now is a tiny tiny tiny percentage of what it once was.
Water, we have learned from industrialisation how to sanitise with ease. How to store enough with dams and reservoirs.
Food, shelter, and water. The basic necessities of life. Can all be provided by society to every person with ease now. And yet, under the current system, and what Sorgan is saying, is you must toil or die.
How is that really different from indentured servitude? From Sisyphean toil? From slavery? When all of these things are easily available to the population if those who controlled them wished it to be?
We have the means to provide these basic necessities, but they're artificially made scarce by those who wish to make money. Those who hoard wealth, live opulently, and care not one bit for their fellow human.
I'm not saying work is pointless, I'm not saying nobody should work. I'm saying work as we know it should change. We should work because we want not because we need. We should be able to survive without work, basic necessities. And those who do work, can thrive and live life more luxuriously, more to the full.