1. With respect to the food that doesn't need to be pealed, so what? That isn't a sign of laziness anymore than its a sign of laziness that we don't chop our own wood and build fires to heat our homes. If a capitalist can sell pealed fruit cheaply, great.
2. The real issue is a breakdown of self-discipline. In part it happens in any wealthy culture. The population loses its drive. But it doesn't have to happen quickly—Rome lasted for centuries as a wealthy superpower. In our case, the 60s resulted in culture that told everyone it was OK to not take care of yourself. Obesity is part of the problem—being fat isn't looked down on. But as bad as it is, that is the least of our problems. A fat person can still support himself or herself (no pun intended). The worse problem is people who think they don't have to work. And I'm not just talking about people on Welfare or public assistance. I'm talking about adult men and women who mooch off their parents or spouses or others in their lives to live the life of Riley. People in their 20s and 30s who live with their parents. Men who are long term unemployed and perfectly happy to have their wives support them.
Then there is the professionalism issue. Most people should be embarrassed at the emails they send. I know smart people—one a managing partner at a law firm who makes well into the six figures—whose emails look like they were written by a six year old. Same with work around the house. Not to stereotype but it seems that older people are more likely to fix smaller problems around the house than younger people. Young people just don't want to put the effort into fixing a toilet. Same with cleaning. I'm shocked by the number of middle class people I know who have someone clean their houses. Cooking too—younger moms would rather take the kids to McDonalds or some other restaurant than take the effort to cook.
It all adds up to personal and ultimately, national decline.
In regards to your point #3. I have young women friends who are just now learning to cook and they are late 20’s-early 30’s. They were never taught to cook. One young woman I’m thinking of, said her mom had her in ballet, gymanastics and other after school stuff so she would be ‘well rounded’ but because home ec wasn’t offered in her high school, she never learned to cook. Some of it is probably lazy, heck most of it might be lazy, but some may be ingnorace of how to do things. Especially if the young one’s mom was out ‘succeeding’ in the ‘real’ world of work.
“I’m shocked by the number of middle class people I know who have someone clean their houses.”
If someone earning $50 hourly can hire someone for $10 hourly to clean their house (or mow their lawn or clean their clothes), then electing to do these chores themselves costs society 5 times as much (in terms of the value of resources used) than if they buy such labor. Thus, what you view as sloth may actually be common sense contributing to efficiency.
You might well legitimately argue that such an individual won’t work any of the extra time saved by farming out chores. Fair enough. But then you have to ask what’s the value of time spent with a family? For people in that income bracket, it likely exceeds $10 an hour. Pretend it’s $30 an hour. Once again, giving up that time (even though unpaid) to do chores reduces the welfare/happiness of such individuals and their families. So how is protecting that time by buying out services that can be easily and cheaply done by others a sign of sloth?
Most of us don’t grow our own food, bake our own bread, make our own clothes etc. Is this seriously a sign of sloth, or progress?
Bells “peal”, fruit is “peeled”