Actually machines HAVE reduced drudgery, and improved the safety and quality of work.

In the early days of the US over 90% of the population was engaged in farming and food production. It was physically tough work (our storybook image of sunshine filled family farms is largely fiction), that left little time for anything else.

Machines replaced much of that, to the extent that the country is well fed by less than 5% of the population now. The other labor did not become (at least not permanently) unemployment, but moved on to other productive areas. The average family, including the remaining farm families, have far more possessions and personal comforts than the days when it was hand labor.

And this continues to happen. As labor is freed up on one area, it eventually finds a new area of endeavor. Labor is the big, fixed value in the economy. There is only so much of it on the whole, and there is only so much that each individual can provide in exchange. The more productive the enconomy becomes, the more goods and services are available for the same labor input, and the wealthier the society actually is.

As much as we may complain about our jobs, they are vastly easier, safer, and less physically destructive than most occupations in the non industrialized world.

[This enables us to enjoy things at a different level. Steve has, I understand, horses and some crops that he enjoys recreationally precisely because there is no need to actually survive by means of them. Technology provides income, and equipment (trucks, tractors, pumps etc) that changes the character of even traditional activities]