Okay, from the comments I was able to guess at what you were trying to do.
You are correct that the key is that as long as $g(x)=f(x)$ for $x\geq 0$, everything will work out, so you only need to worry about defining $g$ on the negative numbers.
You attempted to do so by letting $g_1$ be a function that is defined only on the nonnegative numbers and $-1$, and setting $g_1(-1)=k$. Then $g_2$ would be an extension of $g_1$, which is also defined as $k$ at $-2$; and so on. In general, $g_{n}$ would be define on $\{-n,-n+1,\ldots,-1\}\cup[0,\infty)$, by $g(x) = f(x)$ if $x\geq 0$ and $g(x)=k$ if $x\lt n$.
As I noted in the comments, your formulas didn't really say that; instead, they only specified $g_1$ at $-1$, and then said, for example, that $g_2(x-1)=k$. That is at best confusing. What is $g_2(-0.5)$? According to this, I have to think of $-0.5$ as $0.5 - 1$, and then it's $k$, and ... Well, a bit of a confusing issue arises...
In any case, whether this works as an answer or not depends on whether you are assuming that your functions need to be defined on the same set or not. Normally, we would be looking for functions $g$ such that $f(x)=g(|x|)$ and we want both $f$ and $g$ to have the same domain. Remember that two functions are equal if and only if they have the same domain, the same codomain, and the same value at every element of the domain. So even if you could have set up the induction properly to get the functions you wanted (or if you wanted to define $g_1$ on $[-1,0)$, then $g_2$ extended to all of $[-2,0)$, and so on sothat $g_n$ was defined on $[-n,\infty)$) it still would not give a good answer to the problem because of the restrictive domains of your $g$s. (You are really composing the absolute value with $g$; I think Spivak wants you to play with functions that are defined everywhere here, rather than on artificial domains; I could be wrong, though).
If you do not require your functions $g$ to have the same domain as $f$, then your intended answer would also work; the functions $g_n$ are different because they have different domains, even though they all have the same values where their domains agree.
I think, though, that the intended answer relies instead in defining $g_n(x)$ for $x\lt 0$ as different things for different $n$. For example, you could set
$$g_n(x) = \left\{\begin{array}{ll}
f(x) &\mbox{if $x\geq 0$,}\\
n &\mbox{if $x\lt 0$;}
\end{array}\right.$$
and this would work. There is no need to state it as induction, because the values depend only on the labels, and you simply have infinitely many distinct labels to choose from.
That said: yes, you can use induction to define a (countably infinite) series of functions. If you wanted to do that here, you could express it explicitly stating what $g_1$ is (giving its domain clearly; if all you say is $g(-1)=k$, then you are telling us the value at $-1$, but not saying anything about values elsewhere, not even that it is not defined there). Then saying that assuming you have defined $g_n$ with a domain of, say, $[-n,\infty)$, you define $g_{n+1}$ on $[-n-1,\infty)$ by
$$g_{n+1}(x) = \left\{\begin{array}{ll}
g_n(x) &\mbox{if $x\in[-n,\infty)$.}\\
\mbox{whatever} &\mbox{if $x\in [-n-1,-n)$;}
\end{array}\right.$$
This would indeed give an inductive definition for your $g_n$, defined on $[-n,\infty)$, each extending the previous one.
When working in the real numbers, $\sqrt[3]{x}$ denotes the unique number $a$ such that $a^3=x$. Since $(-1)^3=-1$, we have $\sqrt[3]{-1}=-1$.
When working in the complex numbers, the notation $\sqrt[3]{z}$ is imprecise. Every complex number has three cube roots, and there is no natural way of defining the 'principal' cube root of a complex number. It is sensible, however, to define $\sqrt[3]{z}$ in the complex numbers if $z$ also happens to be a real number. Then, $\sqrt[3]{z}$ can be defined in the way above.
That being said, sometimes we define the 'principal' $n$-th root of a complex number in the following way. If $z=re^{i\theta}$, where $\theta$ is the principal argument of $z$*, and $r$ is the magnitude of $z$, then
$$
\sqrt[n]{z} = \sqrt[n]{r} \cdot e^{i\theta/n} \, ,
$$
where $\sqrt[n]{r}$ denotes the principal real root of $r$. This means that $z \mapsto \sqrt[n]{z}$ is not a continuous function, but we still might choose to adopt the notation $\sqrt[n]{z}$ as a matter of convenience. This is probably the root that Wolfram Alpha was referring to:
$$
\sqrt[3]{-1} = \sqrt[3]{1e^{i\pi}} = \sqrt[3]{1} \cdot e^{(i\pi)/3} = e^{(i\pi)/3} \approx 0.5 + 0.866i \, .
$$
*Again, the 'principal' argument of a complex number involves a branch cut, where we require that $\theta \in (-\pi,\pi]$. Again, this does not define a continuous function.
Best Answer
You need to find the values of $c$ such that $f(cx)=f(x)$ for some $x$. Well write out what this means: it means that
$$\dfrac{1}{1+cx} = \dfrac{1}{1+x}$$
Rearranging gives
$$cx=x$$
CAUTION! The temptation here is to divide through by $x$, in which case the only solution is $c=1$. But you need to find the values of $c$ for which some value of $x$ satisfies the equation. So what else might you be able to have?
When can you not divide through by $x$? Why can't you? What implications does this have for your equation? In this case, which values of $c$ still satisfy the equation?