Isn't it just obfuscation and dishonesty when politicians start making appeals to "fairness"?

Imagine a moment where in a sort of John Rawls-esque fantasy, everybody is in the same social and economic position. Soon enough, the smart, energetic, gifted and ambitious people will begin to outproduce and outearn the dumb, slow, apathetic and mediocre people (unless of course the former were unfairly inhibited and the latter were unfairly given an advantage).
No different than if sprinters line up on the same line, and run the same distance, on the same surface (which sounds fair to me). One will be fastest and one will be slowest.
So what good is all this talk about fairness, when fairness only means that, eventually, the outcome is predictable anyway.