Your argument depends on a stipulation of the definition of "fairness" where the persons most easily associated with production are entitled to the most favorable tax treatment. Without that assumption, all you're saying is that just as there is a suboptimal tax system that is least expensive to collect, so too there's a suboptimal tax system that is least distortionary to the economy.

There are notions of fairness that aren't premised on the idea that tax rates aren't a point score system for rating people, and it can be rational to accept some degree of distortion so long as it's not so powerful that it prevents the economy from serving its purpose (and so long as that distortion is buying us something).