Honest Toil?

This used to be where the high speed canning lines were in the old Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Fountainbridge complex. Shortly after I joined the company they took us on a tour of the plant and we watched it working. The lines of cans being filled with beer, the automation of it all, except for the loading of the can lids. That needed someone to unwrap a roll of them and slide them into place down a shallow ramp. It seemed a fairly pointless task as we walked round, but I guess the purpose was to help keep the few human workers that were there alert for their real purpose, reacting quickly if anything went wrong with the machines. Keeping that column of lids well stocked meant they couldn't slack off and were aware of what was happening as the cans filled up with beer, the boxes were filled with cans and pallets loaded with boxes. Okay, maybe the product - cans of Kestrel Lager and McEwans Export - wasn't the best in social terms but I feel that at least they were making something back then. Was that 'honest toil'?
Now we have just another block of student flats. Property ownership making money for the rentier class simply through the leasing of physical space. Somewhere to live. And the scales are tilted so far in favour of those that own the property that those that need to rent it are further and further away from improving their own circumstances. I say 'own' - sometimes it doesn't even need to be that. The buy-to-let mortgage market is such these days that having just enough money to get a mortgage can produce such high returns on your investment that why would you bother to even attempt to make anything. What toil is there in that, honest or otherwise?