To be fair, a similar pattern might be present in other industries as well, e.g. finance, food services, manufacturing, etc. I think the point the author is tr

To be fair, a similar pattern might be present in other industries as well, e.g. finance, food services, manufacturing, etc. I think the point the author is trying to make though is that academia is uniquely like a drug gang, but I'd don't see anything to justify that. My guess is that you'd find something like this in every large and hierarchically-organized system. That's not to say this is a good way to do things though...