As I said to the parent poster, that's not what it means at all. It means that you should look at the system's incentives, not the behavior of individuals as the root cause of any issues.

You don't need to be a "cheating scum" to succeed, but there are not enough checks in place to prevent that from being a successful strategy for someone who wouldn't succeed otherwise.

The people who need to change the most are the nameless "they" who issue funding because they have the most control over these systems, along with the publishing cartel which has almost no redeeming value in today's environment.