But this is really a societal/political issue: since we decided that economic capital is king and symbolic capital not that much… (This is really the story of the last four decades or so.)
Well, this is about Pierre Bourdieu, and he had a few things to say about academia, as in Homo Academicus.
And I'm not sure what example could illustrate the problem with the lopsided valuation of economic capital and the general devaluation of symbolic capital (as compared to pre-1980s, we have since undergone a social revolution of considerable dimensions, which is also why there isn't an easy fix) better than this one.
Socio-economic issues aren't one-dimensional, in fact they're very complex. Most of our systems and beliefs are socially constructed.
Humans are, by our biology, social creatures. Modern humanity more than ever before. If you're not considering the social effects, then IMO you're not addressing anything of value.
Not many people in the academic/technical people realize this, often for their entire lives. In their naive worldview, they cannot even imagine that people can stoop that low.
(embarrassingly and shamefully I used to be one of those naive people)
The problem being, we have "economized" academia, by things like "publish or perish", a citation pseudo stock market or third party funding, and all incentives are built around this pseudo-economy. Which also imports all the common incentives found in economy…
