[jltsiren]

From a certain perspective, there are two kinds of fields in the academia: "laboratory science" and everything else. If you want to make a career in laboratory science, you need to be a manager and a professional beggar. You need to bring in money to hire people to do your research, and you need to support the administration with grant overheads. If you are good at the job, you pay the administration more than they pay you. Long-term non-manager positions are rare, because they are more expensive for the university than successful managers.

Outside laboratory science, the expectation to bring in funding is not as strong. You don't need much money to do research, and grants are not as readily available. As far as the administration is concerned, if you do your teaching duty without too many issues, you can use the rest of your time as you see fit. Academic politics revolve more around personal relationships with the tenured people at your department.