system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is the UK academic system in a state of perpetual crisis?

Just curious, I just arrived a few months ago, but with the strike action, COVID, inflation, the on-going cost of living crisis, the recent restructuring of student loans, the eventual end of the tuition freeze in 2025, and the continual over regulation of the academic sector by the Office of Students - how does any of this place the academy in a positive place for the 2020s, let alone the 2030s? Is the sector just going to continue to eat itself alive until it's brought back down to a more reasonable size? I don't know, but I would like to hear other UK-based academics thoughts on this issues.
gpt
Your comment on being cut down to size seems spot on. Looking on, now from the outside, British academia considers itself a profession akin to lawyers, medical doctors etc. In labour terms, it's more like McDonald's - excluding STEM. 
Restricting access to funded PhDs seems to be socially regressive. 
The only solution, then, is fewer but better paid permanent positions. But are the thousands of current PhD and post-doc researchers willing to accept this?