The Gig Strike and the Ghost of Feudalism: Why India Must Reclaim the Morality of Profit

You will have heard of the strike called by riders working for Zomato, Zepto, Blinkit, Flipkart, and Amazon on New Year's Eve. I confess I do not use these services myself; I am more likely to be found guilty of spending thirty minutes fetching what could arrive at my doorstep in ten. But the national conversation this strike provoked cannot be ignored.

On the surface, this appears to be yet another labour dispute. Social media, as is its custom, is divided into opposing camps. Critics launched their assault on these companies; certain influencers spoke the language of boycott. The socialist left lent its predictable support. On the other side, company founders presented their defence, and advocates of free markets rallied to their cause. In one sense, this was tribal warfare, a spectacle not unfamiliar to the Indian public. Demands for worker protection, corporate resistance, government mediation: this sequence is well-worn. Those who remember the history of Bombay's textile mills will readily recall the conflicts of the seventies and eighties.

But this time, something struck me differently. This is not merely a struggle over wages or benefits. The language employed transforms the dispute into a moral tribunal: profit becomes sin, the entrepreneur becomes exploiter, wealth becomes crime.

At the root of this discourse lie deeper questions. How is profit generated? To whom does wealth accrue, and why? What is capital? Does profit arise only from exploitation? And are all who possess wealth necessarily guilty of extracting it from others?

These questions underlie many of our most firmly held convictions. And I believe that a fundamental confusion about these matters pervades our society, perhaps pervades us all.

This essay is an attempt to examine that confusion.

The Suspicion of Wealth

The suspicion with which Indians regard wealth is, I believe, a deeply rooted inheritance from our feudal past.

Barrington Moore observed that India transitioned from feudalism to democracy without bloodshed. One considerable consequence of this peaceful passage was that many feudal assumptions remained embedded in Indian society. This is visible in our politics; it has equally profound effects on our economic thinking.

Under feudalism, one's station is determined at birth. The king's son becomes king; the servant's son, servant; the farmer's son, farmer. In such a system, wealth derives from inherited position, not from one's own labour. It is received from ancestors and remains unchanged throughout life. To become rich requires no service to society; the accident of birth suffices.

Therefore, when we observe great wealth in the hands of another today, our first thought is: this cannot have been earned through effort alone. More importantly, the idea that this person might have acquired wealth by serving society, or that such wealth might be employed for society's benefit, this notion does not even occur to us. Instead, we readily assume that such wealth must have been accumulated through some form of exploitation, wrung from those at the bottom, representing profits that ought to have flowed to society but were instead appropriated by this individual.

When, in 1975, the word "socialist" was inserted into the Constitution's preamble, it was not merely a political decision. It was an intellectual signal: that profit is suspect, private enterprise is selfish and wealth arises from injustice. The consequences of policies founded on these assumptions have been demonstrated by history. By 1991, foreign reserves had so depleted that the nation's gold had to be pledged as collateral. The economic freedom we had denied ourselves out of fear of profit and wealth had to be reluctantly restored. And the result? Today India stands as the world's fourth-largest economy, with foreign exchange reserves exceeding six hundred billion dollars and an economic situation incomparably better than that dark hour.

Yet despite all this, one thing has not happened. The intellectual foundations of the free economy that delivered these results, how it operates, upon what principles it rests, what philosophical justification supports capitalism: none of this has reached the broader society. Consequently, whenever any large company succeeds, suspicion precedes admiration. "They must have exploited someone" arrives before "How much employment have they created." And when this new system leaves questions unanswered or creates new problems, rather than seeking improvements within the system or taking what is good and thinking afresh, many incline toward declaring "the system itself is rotten."

But this problem does not belong to critics alone. Those who have benefited from this free economy, who received the opportunity to advance themselves through it, have equally failed to understand their responsibilities. Where do we fit within this system? Why does wealth differ between ourselves and others? If we possess wealth that others lack, how ought it to be used? These questions do not even arise in our minds.

The result is a certain vulgarity, a shallowness. Consider: engagements once lasted a day, weddings another. Now we witness week-long spectacles: mehendi, sangeet, haldi, cocktail, event upon event. This is the symptom of half-understood wealth, of responsibility unrecognised. The consequence is that the very system capable of carrying the nation forward develops deficiencies, while society lacks the wisdom to remedy them. And so, it seems to me, we prepare to leap once more into the socialist pit from which we once escaped.

Capitalism: A Revolutionary Transformation in the Moral Meaning of Wealth

The root of all this confusion is that we continue to view modern wealth through a feudal lens.

Under capitalism, wealth flows to those who provide the greatest service and products to society. The moral foundation of such wealth is precisely this: that its possessor has met society's needs, found answers to society's problems, and received society's endorsement in return. Under feudalism, the king is an exploiter; under capitalism, the king is, in the truest sense, a servant.

Consider how this operates. A company may be prospering, selling its product in the market. But another entrepreneur, harnessing science and technology or innovating in production methods, creates the same product more efficiently at lower cost. The benefit is that those who previously could not afford the item can now purchase it. Sometimes an entrepreneur applies new technology to improve an existing product, making it more useful and easier to use. It is through this competition that society receives the best products. And the reward for this effort comes to the entrepreneur in the form of profit.

The entrepreneur begins each day with capital. With that capital come raw materials. Employment is provided, and with the help of workers, labour and materials combine to create products. These products are sold in the market, and profit is earned. But here the circle of capitalism does not close. The next day, combining yesterday's profit with existing capital, raw materials are purchased on a larger scale. More workers are employed. Production expands. If efficiencies can be achieved, they are pursued. Though the motive may be to maximise profit, the entrepreneur operates under a constant fear: fail to produce most efficiently and cost-effectively, and someone else will do so and drive you from the market.

Each person, pursuing self-interest, knowingly serves others; and in serving others, advances their own good.

Take the mobile phone as an example. The phones we use today are a hundred times better than those of ten years ago: battery, camera, processing power. All this has been made possible only through competition among producers.

Those who criticise capitalism should note one thing. The fundamental principle of capitalism is mass production. And who will use it? The masses themselves. In earlier systems, quality goods were made only for the select few. Under capitalism, maximum profit is earned when products are sold to the maximum number of people. Even those whom Marx called the "proletariat" benefit unknowingly from this system. The evidence is before our eyes. In the last hundred years, the world's population has increased fivefold. Yet that population receives at least the basic necessities. This would not have been possible without capitalism.

This is why, in modern capitalism, the entrepreneur is not exploiter but society's coordinator, an imaginative and active organiser who brings together the needs, labour, capital, and ideas of millions of strangers. This fundamental transformation we have never understood. And so, even today, we view capitalism through the spectacles of feudalism.

Wealth, Cooperation, and Culture: Why Money Was Created and When It Bears Fruit

Let us now step further back.

Without understanding why wealth and money were invented in the first place, and why they proved so fruitful in certain periods, the true nature of the modern economy cannot be grasped.

From the very beginning, man has lived by cooperation. Primitive man dwelt in tribes. He hunted together with his fellows. He protected them; they protected him. In those days, needs were few: food, and to some degree shelter, for man was a wanderer upon the earth. But then came agriculture, and with it, a turning point in human history. Settlements arose. Food could be stored. Populations swelled. And needs multiplied. Beyond food came clothing, houses, tools, implements. Here began the division of labour. Here began exchange. One man took to farming, another to making pots, another to forging iron, another to weaving cloth. This was specialization in its infancy. Yet cooperation faced an obstacle: the limitations of barter, what economists call the double coincidence of wants. The potter needed grain daily; the farmer did not need pots daily. The blacksmith might require a house today, but if the mason wanted cloth and not iron, then no one's needs would be met. In Mesopotamia, we find records of such barter accounts stretching back to 3000 BCE.

But the answer came. It came through a discovery as revolutionary as agriculture itself: coinage. Wealth in abstract form.

The importance of this discovery equalled that of agriculture. For the first time, cooperation was unshackled. A man could sell what he had and buy what he needed. Effort met reward. Wealth could be stored. And in that moment, human ambition found a new dimension. There are limits to how many pots one can store. There are limits to how much iron one can hoard. But coins? Coins know no such limits. This possibility of accumulation, this new horizon, gave wings to the industrious spirit of man.

First grain, livestock; later metal coins. Around 700 BCE, the Lydians clearly employed coinage. The significance of this invention was as revolutionary as agriculture itself. For the first time, cooperation faced no limits. Selling goods and buying "whatever is needed" became possible; labour could receive direct reward; wealth could be accumulated. And at that very moment, human achievement gained new horizons.

Money, then, was not an invention of greed. It was the most powerful instrument humanity devised to make cooperation more effective.

But here, a subtle point must be noted: money is merely an instrument. It does not by itself create culture.

Where wealth is generated and flows in the right direction, certain things already exist: rules of property, trust in transactions, enforcement of law, and above all, ideas that give direction to society. Money and capital are the "machine"; but the "social software" that operates the machine is something else.

This is why history reveals a pattern.

In those eras when money, trade, governance, and intellectual vitality came together, humanity produced its finest thought. In Greece arose the tradition of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In India, the Upanishads, Buddha, Mahavira, and later the statecraft of the Mauryas. In China, the thoughts of Confucius and Lao Tzu took shape. Cities rose, trade routes opened, and administration strengthened. Even now, two and a half millennia later, the ideas we find useful were seeded in that very era.

This was no coincidence.

When wealth is not merely hoarded but the system allows it to flow in the right direction, people who can answer society's needs come forward. And philosophers who provide intellectual foundations for those answers also emerge. Wealth is the root of the state, for without wealth, neither army, nor administration, nor art, nor education, nor liberty can endure.

This same principle appears in later history.

Before the Industrial Revolution, an intellectual movement arose in Europe: the movement for "useful knowledge." That movement gave capital the right direction. This is what this year's Nobel laureate Joel Mokyr has termed the "Industrial Enlightenment." His thesis is simple: when knowledge that addresses society's practical needs is joined with capital, only then does industrial revolution become possible.

Where this conjunction succeeded, nations flourished. Where it failed, societies decayed despite possessing wealth.

In today's debates, what we call "wealth" is not merely a matter of numbers. It is society's capacity for cooperation. And the intellectual and institutional framework that directs that capacity is the true test of any civilisation.

Government Intervention: Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes

History teaches us one thing repeatedly. If wealth and cooperation are to flow in the right direction, institutions play a crucial role. But precisely here lies a great danger. When institutions begin to exercise direct control rather than guidance, the very system that built society is gradually undermined.

In a free market, the government's role is clear: law and order, enforcement of contracts, protection of property rights. When government moves beyond this to say "we will fix prices," "we will fix wages," "we will decide who produces what," then problems begin.

Ludwig von Mises gave many simple yet profound examples of this in his lectures.

Intervention never stops at one point; one intervention gives birth to another.
— Ludwig von Mises

Suppose the government imposes rent control because rents have risen and the poor cannot afford housing. The intention is good. But what is the result? Landlords find it unprofitable to rent out homes; new houses are not built; maintenance of old houses ceases. Within a few years, housing shortage worsens. What does the government do then? Subsidies for construction, compulsory allocation, new regulations. The problem is not solved; the chain of interventions grows.

Or consider minimum wage. The purpose is worker protection. But when the government mandates wages above market rates, industries that cannot afford such wages simply stop hiring. Those meant to be helped find themselves unable to find work. The government intervenes again: employment schemes, subsidies, training programmes. The original problem remains.

The same occurs with planning. The government decides how much of which goods will be produced, where, and for whom. But which goods are in greater demand, which technology is more effective, where resources will be best employed: this information cannot be gathered in any office. In the market, the decisions of millions of people, prices, profits and losses communicate this information moment by moment. Planning loses this information.

Here a fundamental virtue of capitalism becomes visible. Price is not merely a number; it is information. It tells what society needs, where there is scarcity, where abundance. Profit is not the reward of greed; it is the receipt for correct decisions. And loss is like a penalty, a signal that says "here a mistake was made."

Government lacks this mechanism. Government can continue operating regardless of losses, because it possesses the power to levy taxes and print money. This is why government enterprises rarely match the efficiency of private ones.

Another consequence appears in inflation. When government constantly borrows or prints money to meet expenses, wealth on paper increases but actual production does not. Prices rise, the savings of the poor erode, and those meant to be protected suffer the greatest blow.

The problem, then, lies not in the government's intentions but in its methods.

The moment government transforms from "protector" to "manager," the natural direction of capital and cooperation is disrupted. One intervention gives birth to another, and gradually the entire system becomes entangled in a web of regulations.

This does not mean the government's role should be zero. But history teaches one lesson: guide the market, but do not strike it with a hammer.

For wealth and cooperation are a delicate mechanism. It requires proper rules, but not excessive intervention.

The Gig Economy and the Zomato Affair

Let us now return to where we began: the strike by riders on Zomato and other platforms.

On this occasion, many demands were raised. Minimum wage, fixed hours, social security, registration, welfare boards. The government promptly announced certain decisions. On the surface, all this appears to serve workers' interests. But without understanding the consequences of these decisions, we are about to fall into the same trap of intervention.

The fundamental nature of the gig economy is different. This is not a full-time employment system; it is a flexible work arrangement. Most riders do not work all day, do not work all year, and many use it as supplementary income. Some are students, some work part-time, some already have other occupations.

The data Zomato has provided illuminates this reality. Average hourly earnings are around one hundred rupees. Working full-time, one can easily earn twenty-five to twenty-six thousand rupees monthly. Tips go directly to riders. Only a small fraction of riders work more than two hundred to two hundred and fifty days per year; the majority work only for a few weeks or months.

This is precisely why the system endures: it is flexible. If someone wants to work three hours today, they work three hours. If they do not wish to work tomorrow, they do not. Where to work, when to work, how much to work: these decisions belong to the worker. It is this very flexibility that has given millions of people the opportunity for immediate income instead of unemployment.

Now intervention begins. When the government mandates minimum wages, fixes hours, makes registration, insurance, and welfare funds compulsory for every rider, costs rise. Companies must take on more administration, more paperwork, more responsibilities for each rider. What is the result?

First: companies retain fewer riders. Second: work opportunities diminish. Third: for those for whom this system was a gateway, that door closes.

Here Mises's lesson applies once more. One intervention gives birth to another. When work decreases, the government introduces employment schemes. When costs rise, subsidies must be given. When regulations multiply, corruption, dishonesty, and middlemen multiply. The original purpose, worker protection, gradually produces the opposite result.

In Europe, the labour laws we cite as examples came after a certain stage of development. Per capita income there was higher, productivity was higher, and the economy was stable. India's situation is different. Here, hundreds of millions remain in the informal sector, skills are limited, and unemployment is substantial.

To impose European-style protections directly on such a society is to snatch away opportunity itself.

The gig economy is not perfect. Improvements are needed. Insurance is needed, safety is needed, transparency is needed. But there is a difference between improvement and intervention. Regulation should not destroy flexibility. Protection should not kill opportunity.

For the true value of this system lies not in the salary figures but in the door it has opened. The young person who earned a first income, the migrant who gained a foothold in the city, the family that found temporary relief in sudden crisis: this is the true earning of this system. And this opportunity was not created by government. It was created by the market.

The question, therefore, is not whether worker protection is needed. The real question is: in the name of protection, are we not destroying opportunity itself?

Economy, Technology, and Sovereignty

Here we arrive at a deeper and more far-reaching question. Is this entire discussion limited merely to wages, workers, or platforms? The answer is no. It is directly connected to the nation's future.

For history states one thing clearly: strong sovereignty does not rest on military strength alone; it stands upon a strong economy and advanced technology. Today's wars, today's competition, today's power are not determined solely on battlefields. They are determined in laboratories, factories, research centres, and in the process of capital formation. Those who possess technology, those who possess capital, and those who possess the capacity to create both: they alone are truly independent.

This chain must be understood.

To create technology requires research. Research requires capital. Capital requires wealth creation. And for wealth to be created, free enterprise, competition, and capital formation must have room to flourish.

Break this chain anywhere, and sovereignty weakens.

We see countless examples of this in the world today. Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology, space technology: in all these fields, the nations that lead are those playing decisive roles in global politics. America, China, Israel, South Korea: the strength of these nations lies not merely in their armies; it lies in their entrepreneurs, their research, and their capital formation.

Conversely, nations that viewed industry and capital formation with suspicion, that placed restrictions on entrepreneurship, that treated profit as crime: those nations fell behind in technology and ultimately became politically dependent.

Are we about to repeat this mistake?

India today stands at a decisive crossroads. Our population is young. We have talent. We have a market. But how strong is our culture of capital formation and entrepreneurship? That is the real question.

Today we view entrepreneurs with suspicion, criticise profit, and look at every new enterprise through the lens of exploitation. But if tomorrow this very enterprise makes the country self-reliant in artificial intelligence, defence technology, pharmaceuticals, or space research, what then?

Freedom is not merely political.

It is economic. It is technological. And its foundation lies in capital formation. In a society where entrepreneurship is honoured, where failure is not treated as crime, where capital flows in the right direction: only there is new technology born, and only there does a nation become truly independent.

This is why the gig economy, labour laws, and capital formation matter. This entire discussion is not merely about today's wages. It is a discussion about tomorrow's India's sovereignty.

For history's single firm lesson is this: in a society where economic freedom does not exist, no other freedom endures.

The Path for Tomorrow's India

Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, political freedom: all ultimately rest upon a society's economic strength. But economic freedom is not created merely by changing laws or announcing policies. It requires intellectual readiness, moral maturity, and institutional wisdom.

Today, at the crossroads where India stands, four things must be done clearly.

Intellectual Transformation

We must understand capitalism: not merely as an economic system but as a moral order.

Profit is not sin. The entrepreneur is not exploiter. Wealth is not crime.

That capitalism is a system that answers society's needs, that organises the cooperation of millions: this must be firmly established in our public discourse.

Just as in Europe, Locke, Smith, and Voltaire laid the intellectual foundations before the market flourished, so too must an intellectual movement for economic freedom arise in India.

The Responsibility of Capital Holders

Those who have received the benefits of this system bear equally great responsibility.

Wealth is not for arrogance; it is for progress.

Those who possess capital must honour labour, must not look down upon those who toil, and must preserve the awareness that success is not theirs alone but the fruit of society's cooperation. The relationship between capitalist and worker should not be one of conflict but of partnership.

The Productive Use of Capital

Society's good is not served by hoarding wealth. If capital remains idle, it creates no opportunity. And if capital is spent only on display, on unproductive luxury, on shallow consumption, it contributes nothing to society's progress.

The true need is for capital to be used in ways that create industry, generate employment, advance technology, and increase the nation's productivity.

Building and Entrepreneurship

Here arrives the final and most important stage of all this. The true burden of India's future does not rest upon government. It rests upon the youth of this nation. Those who possess knowledge, skill, ideas, and courage should harbour the ambition not to seek employment but to create it.

Through capital, technology, and entrepreneurship, enterprises that answer society's needs must be built.

Ultimately, the real question is this: which India do we want? An India where every new idea is trapped in a web of regulations, where profit is viewed with suspicion, where wealth is treated as crime? Or an India where entrepreneurship is honoured, where labour receives dignity, where capital flows in the right direction, and where from the ideas of the young, tomorrow's technology is born?

One thing is certain. Without economic freedom, no freedom endures. Only if economic freedom is preserved will India become not merely prosperous but truly independent and sovereign.

To build India as such is the primary duty of its youth.