Having been in grad school for a while, I can totally relate on using grants to churn out papers and egos running research.
Want to slightly disagree with this though: "Apart from feeling the gross unfairness of the whole thing – the students, who do the real work, are paid/rewarded amazingly little, while those who manage it, however superficially, are paid/rewarded amazingly much – the PhD student is often left wondering if they are only doing science now so that they may themselves manage later. The worst is when a PhD who wants to stay in academia accepts this and begins to play on the other side of the table."
The same thing happens in industry, except that you're paid more, and your work is directly relevant to the world you see (and not just a journal/conference where it is never read again.)
True. In an organization with enough people, it's often more efficient to specialize (e.g., into workers and managers).
I would say that the quoted statement is not an entirely fair characterization of managers (PIs) in academia though. It's always easy to discount the contribution of others and to believe you did all of the work, and believe me, you do a lot of it - but it's not a trivial matter that these "managers" already thought up and won money for the general research direction, and ultimately accept responsibility for the success of your projects; not to mention having to worry about funding you for the duration of your PhD. And do recall that they do had to be extremely patient with you while you were still learning the ropes - so you can't extrapolate your productivity in your last year back to the first year when assessing your cumulative value. ("you" used here in the generic sense)
I won't deny that many managers are asshats as bosses, but their job is not so simple.
Want to slightly disagree with this though: "Apart from feeling the gross unfairness of the whole thing – the students, who do the real work, are paid/rewarded amazingly little, while those who manage it, however superficially, are paid/rewarded amazingly much – the PhD student is often left wondering if they are only doing science now so that they may themselves manage later. The worst is when a PhD who wants to stay in academia accepts this and begins to play on the other side of the table."
The same thing happens in industry, except that you're paid more, and your work is directly relevant to the world you see (and not just a journal/conference where it is never read again.)