You are confusing "fairness" and egalitarianism. While everyone has their own definition of "fairness", it feels obvious to me that, even if you're correct about the cost of imposing reasonable egalitarianism being too high in any given situation, this does not absolve us from seeking some palliative measures to protect those left worst off by that situation. Reducing first the suffering of those who suffer most is an ok partial definition of fairness for me.
Despite (or due to, I'm too sleepy to figure it out) considering myself an egalitarian, I would prefer a world where the most achieving 10% get 200 units of income (and the top 10% of them get 1000), the least achieving 10% get 2 units and everyone else gets 5-15 units (1 unit supporting the lifestyle of today's European blue-collar worker) to a world where the bottom 10% get 0.2 units and everyone else gets 25-50. Isn't that more or less the point of charity (aside from signaling)?
even if you're correct about the cost of imposing reasonable egalitarianism being too high in any given situation
I didn't say this. Actually, I'd consider it somewhat incoherent in the context of my argument: if imposing reasonable egalitarianism (whatever "reasonable" is) was too costly to be sustainable, it seems unlikely that we'd have developed intuitions calling for it.
On the other hand, I suppose one possible scenario where that'd make sense would be if some of the emotional architecture driving our sense of equity evolved in the contex...
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