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Vested interest

noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An indefeasible right or title, distinguished from a contingent interest, which could be defeated (i.e. cease) if a certain event occurred.

    "I saw them enjoying a special privilege which had been theirs so long that it had become a vested interest: they seemed to think it was a law ordained of nature that they should be forever life's favorite sons."

  2. 2
    groups that seek to control a social system or activity from which they derive private benefit wordnet
  3. 3
    A fixed right granted to an employee, especially under a pension plan.
  4. 4
    (law) an interest in which there is a fixed right to present or future enjoyment and that can be conveyed to another wordnet
  5. 5
    A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome.
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  1. 6
    A group of people or organizations with such a stake, especially those that seek to control an existing system or activity from which they derive benefit. in-plural

    "Today, under compulsion of patriotic devotion, fear, shame and bitter need, and under the unprecedentedly shrewd surveillance of public officers bent on maximum production, the great essential industries controlled by the vested interests may, one with another, be considered to approach—perhaps even conceivably to exceed—a fifty-percent efficiency; […]"

  2. 7
    An exceptionally strong interest in protecting or promoting something to one's own advantage.

    "Pervasive changes unfold spontaneously from new system structures. No one need engage in sacrifice or coercion, except, perhaps, to prevent people with vested interests from ignoring, distorting, or restricting relevant information."

Etymology

Popularized in sociology by Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man (1919). But used earlier, e.g. by Winston Churchill: * 1899, Winston Churchill, The River War, an Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan, page 15: The name of the General was a sufficient guarantee that the slave trade was being earnestly attacked. The Khedive would gladly have stopped at the guarantee, and satisfied the world without disturbing 'vested interests.' But...

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