Several lofty, utopian terms are attached to the upswing we’re seeing in the Indian ‘gig’ economy, so let me play the (freelance) devil's advocate here. Robert Reich, Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley says that where we’re headed is ‘Share the Scraps’ economy, instead of the ‘share’ economy — an economy where we are all caught in a race to reach the rock-bottom of wages and benefits. The question we must ask ourselves is are we trying to harness collective genius, foster innovation and raise standards, or are we trying to eliminate standards (which were already on a downward spiral) by shifting all the risk and uncertainty to the employee. Let’s begin from the perspective of the employee. Most of the psychometric profiles we build at Jombay find that people seek deeper relationships and shared experiences at work, and wish to strike a healthy work-life balance. Proponents of the gig ec...