vested interests

Noun

vested interest (plural vested interests)

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.1940, Thomas Wolfe, chapter 46, in You Can't Go Home Again, →OCLC
2. A fixed right granted to an employee, especially under a pension plan.
3. A stake, often financial, in a particular outcome.
4. (in plural) 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.
   • 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...1920 [1919], Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man, New York: B. W. Huebsch, page 78
5. 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.2004, Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, “Transitions to a Sustainable System”, in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, →ISBN

   Synonyms:

   dog in the hunt