I've got a fair number of recently-laid-off friends who are amazingly talented. I don't think the system is "by and large fair." You've just been lucky.
The implication is that someone else should have to give you money for some kind of performative activity.
That's not how it works, it's a misunderstanding of the 'civil contract'.
If we wanted to Socialize All The Means of Everything, we could definitely have guaranteed work for everyone - it would be extremely inefficient - and you would almost never get to do the work you aspire to do.
You'd have to do the work the inefficient system required you to do.
But really nobody wants that, or almost nobody. Most people prefer some kind of economic dynamism that balances those things.
Being laid off is a bummer, and it 'feels unfair', and those chosen for furlough may not hav been chosen fairly, bit layoffs are not inherently unfair.
Probably in most US states, there could be a few inches more and better social systems to support people, but in some places, it's debatable if those systems are helpful.
In the Global South, this is a big problem.
That is your misunderstanding of the civil contract, not a 'definition of fairness'.
If you want the civic employment system to be 'fair' in the way you want to define it, then yes, 'socialism' is the way.
And socialism (I mean real socialism, not like 'Sweden') is always more unfair on the aggregate than otherwise. Possibly stable but very unfair.