I am reviewing Imad Moosa's very important book, Publish or Perish: Perceived Benefits versus Unintended Consequences, which details the academy's deterioration and its creation of crony-supported published research that has no value to the public. POP also has an adverse effect on developnig good teaching (and non-research activities) which should be the essence of being a great professor.

Elite journals seeking to sell individual articles at exorbitant prices discriminate against authors of non-western universities and non-Northern European surnames as do the Germans who create RG scores for the people on this website.

The net result is an ugly, tense environment where, quite often, the best teachers end up losing in the tenure game while those who merely dust off their class lectures and focus on writing end up in the classroom for the long term. Those struggling to not perish often join in daisy chains of authorships where they contribute little except to guarantee others authorships on papers where others make minor or no real contributions.

Why aren't we moving towards a system where great teachers just (or primarily) teach for survival and the small number of researchers survive by creating meaningful papers that are focused on assisting society and not adding to esoteric (often bizarre) academic discussions where a paper is only read and understood by a tiny elite that can fit comfortably in a Volkswagon?