However, many interesting and relevant problems live at the interface of several disciplines. Unfortunately, those working between disciplines will have a hard time getting a permanent job at top universities: Whatever faculty they apply to, there will always be other applicants who are super-specialised and therefore appeal more to the super-specialised faculty members in the hiring committee. That is why true interdisciplinary research still doesn't happen very much, even though it has been praised and encouraged for more than two decades now.
Coming back to the article, in my opinion the solution to overwork is to cut back on elitism. Less famous universities tend to be more relaxed in their recruitment and tenure criteria. Less pressure means more mental flexibility, which can help maintain a wider network of researchers across disciplines. And the wider the network is, the better the chances of being invited to collaborative projects, especially when one has a record of successful interdisciplinary collaboration.
The price to pay is that one will not be able to impress with the name of one's university when doing small talk. But one will be a much more interesting conversation partner — and have free time to meet people outside work with whom to talk.
> ... desires of the state. The dollars come from somewhere and there are always strings attached.
Is this suggesting that the public funders influence the outcome of research? It is not something I have ever witnessed. They sometimes may seek to take influence on the direction of a research programme, especially when the performance is below expectations. but I have yet to see an example where a public funder has attempted to influence research results.
> I think we’d quickly learn that academia of today is not at all what it presupposes itself to be
What does it presuppose to be? Academia of today is 1) a place of teaching and knowledge dissemination, 2) a place of research and knowledge creation, 3) a multibillion dollar business that sells tickets to successful professional lives. The latter leads to overinflated self-marketing, and unfortunately this affects how research results are communicated.
Those who hold the "purse strings" have little interest in influencing research outcomes. Rather, they care about the reputation of their course (students), their own reputation (alumni), recruiting talent and/or outsourcing research (businesses), or actual research results (public funders).
This is at least the case in most institutions in the US and the UK, and most of western Europe.