Some people are born with nothing, others are born with just about everything. Many laws, regulations, etc exist so that JUST existing with nothing is not feasible.
It is nigh impossible to live in this world like the birds do, flying from one food source to the next, roosting wherever you find comfort. Those with means have entire departments to police the underclass off of their property and setup obstacles to make sure riff-raff does not even get on the public property next to their private property (just look at how public transport is set up in big cities).
We protect those with means, ensuring those without cannot even live without selling their labor. Die or work. It's a little like slavery (I KNOW there are large differences between traditional slavery), you must be able to see that?
>but through the slow accumulation of societal benefits, over time, across an open market economy.
Pretty sure most of the improvements we have made for the common man, at least in the US, have come at the behest of those born with nothing standing up and saying "we won't work unless the rewards are distributed better/we get a 40 hour work week/we get cleaner and less dangerous work conditions/etc."
>It is not and will never be "fair", there will never be equality of outcomes,
No one wants equality of outcomes, equality of outcomes would not seem fair to most people. Instead we want equality of opportunity.
We can improve, most of us know it, and even though most improvement will only effect our kids or grandkids, I will still keep bitching that we need to improve until we're AS GREAT AS WE CAN BE.