First of all I have enougof listening that "academics are like this and academics are like that, academia is a dirty place etc). People regardless of their profession, tend to use their power not always for the best of society. So I do not really understand why academia is any different and why academics are any different than other people who have power in any other domain (managers, politicians, religious leaders etc). And we all PhD students are just doing our jobs like everyone else does theirs. We have made it a whole issue "how to survive a PhD" since all we have all the benefits, flexibility, prestige or whatever you name it. Like in EVERY OTHER JOB!