“History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.”
— B. R. Ambedkar
vested interest (n)
- a special interest in an existing system, arrangement, or institution for particular personal reasons.
- a permanent right given to an employee under a pension plan.
- vested interests, the persons, groups, etc., who benefit the most from existing business or financial systems.
Origin: 1810–20; Dictionary.com Unabridged based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
As a social scientist with a primary focus on environmental attitudes, values, and behaviors, I have long been interested in the concept of vested interests and how powerful of a motivator and behavioral driver it can be. While this post has languished for quite some time in the dustbin of my hard drive, several writers (e.g. Kunstler, Astyk) have reminded me that the concept of vested interests or, as it’s sometimes referred to, “psychology of previous investment”, needs much further discussion and enlightenment as a prime motivator and key obstacle to substantial and necessary culture change.
The concept of vested interest is considered a social psychological theory developed by Psychologist William D. Crano. A vested interest is a particular attitude-behavior modifier (Sivacek and Crano, 1982) that refers to the amount that the object of one’s attitude is considered “hedonically relevant” by the holder of the attitude (Crano, 1995). Hedonic relevance refers to the amount of pleasure or contentment that we derive from an attitude or object. If an attitude/object has important perceived personal consequences to the us, then we posses a strong vested interest in the attitude/object. Should this interest be so significant as to influence or affect our lives, then the vested interest will be strong indeed.
Undoubtedly you are quite familiar with the concept of vested interests but may not realize how powerful and pervasive it is in keeping our culture propped up and beeping away on life support. Essentially, vested interests are personal aspects of our lives that we favor that influence our view of reality. They are based on an investment we have made that we do not wish to consider a mistake. This investment can be in time, money, emotional attachment, or any other facet of our lived life. If we make a living selling mops door to door, we generally view mops as better at cleaning floors than Swiffer Wet Disposables. What occurs psychologically is that our personal interest in mop sales convinces our brain that mops are better than other products that could perform the same feat. The same rule applies to us as consumers provided the item is costly enough. Surely little vested interest will embed from a five dollar purchase. But if we impulse buy the Jeep Cherokee, particularly given it’s immediate depreciation out of the showroom, we become protective of the decision, we do not want to be considered ignorant for having purchased the second or fifth best SUV, so we convince ourselves that the Cherokee is the best one out there at that price point. We have a vested financial (and emotional, etc.) interest in doing so.
Of course, when one seeks to justify one’s beliefs that have vested interests as their foundational premise, one is required to roll out arguments based on faith…faith in markets, in God, in American ingenuity, etc. Similar to debates between evolution versus creationism, arguments over issues like peak oil, climate change, and biodiversity pit hard scientists with reams of data against industry-funded hacks who could not prosper within their own community and took up the corporate shield as a fallback. With so much to lose as a vested interest becomes more significant, than so much more aggressive does the protection of that “asset” become necessary, so much more embedded does one’s allegiance to that “asset” become, it’s reality and value are beyond question….they define reality. Vested interests unquestionably has an ego component to it although the academic literature does not concur.
It’s easy to identify vested interests operating in certain domains like climate change where most of the “skeptic” scientific community are on retainers from the very companies who would be most directly impacted by the necessary steps we need to take to combat this crisis. It’s pretty obvious to note that since the hypothetical Bill Smith receives his funding for scientific research on climate change refutation from Peabody Coal or Exxon Mobil, the conclusions will probably be more skeptical of climate change as a valid phenomenon, its impacts if deemed to be true, or what we humans can possibly do about it anyway (and maybe if it’s all true, how they can make some money on the solution). But however shrill the chorus of affront these so-called scientists volley, their curdling buttered bread gives away their relationship to the source of carbon-based wealth. And note that as transparent as these relationships may seem, you can bet that many of these connections are sought to be hidden from public view through the use of legal shell corporations or NOPINO’s or non-profits in name only. The remainder glory in their ties to corporations and their smug denial of influence is truly repugnant.
Beyond this realm of vested interests is the wider domain of the average citizen who, let’s say, works for Massey Energy (or one of the trucking companies that haul coal, or the environmental remediation firm, or the convenience store in the community near the mine (or mountaintop) that employs any of these people and more. What about the banker that sells mortgages to new homeowners in Sunnyside Acres or the home inspector, the insurance agent, the hardware store, landscapers, plumbers, surveyors, or pool installer? Surely they can see the merit of slowing or ending suburban sprawl….can’t they? Well?
How about the Wall Street broker who works closely with corporate conglomerates who just happen to have a large timber tract or aluminum mine in their portfolios. She’s ripe for your plea to stop clearcutting old growth forests, protecting the spotted owl, and standing up for the indigenous cultures in Indonesia who will be displaced for the new mine….right? I know you get the picture…most of us are all interconnected in this culture and economy and would unquestionably be impacted negatively in some way if we were to aggressively protect the environment and our natural resources. So there is a simple logic that emanates from these circumstances that perpetuate the system, add to the power and momentum of the cultural juggernaut made up of a host of individual decisions and choices that result in the growing destruction of our planet. Perhaps this human weakness (and strength) can be harnessed to facilitate a shift to a sustainable economy and culture. But unless people become aware of these dynamics and relationships, there’s little chance of action. Note that vested interests can not only be financial assets but can be a function of the investment one makes in time, effort, emotion or love, and anything else a human being values. If I’ve spent a lifetime developing myself professionally as a financial analyst or chemical engineer, my vested interest in time and effort is huge. It will be difficult to get me to find fault with my profession and see the dark side of what it reaps. I will be dragged kicking and screaming before I’ll admit that it was a waste of my time, or worse, that it supported a destructive or evil enterprise that was the growth economy.
Consider political beliefs or, for that matter, any type of belief, norm, or value. We invest a great deal of our persona in addition to time, money, and emotion in our political party. We also form bonds of friendship and other more strategic alliances based on political beliefs and relationships. This well-crafted, intricately assembled structure of beliefs and relationships is hugely valuable to most of us. This is a significant vested interest. If we were to learn that, for example, the Democratic Party was officially in the pocket of the oil or automobile industries over the past ten election cycles, wouldn’t that be fodder to have us consider changing parties? Maybe. But what if we learned that our favorite Democratic politician was on the take, that a whole host of other scandalous revelations came to light about our beloved party. Might that lead us to give up on them? In all likelihood, probably not. We would most likely rationalize these behaviors and maintain our considerable lifetime of investment in the party. Not a very admirable trait, is it? But consider what we would be giving up if we decided to turn our back on the party. We would be admitting that years of work and donations on behalf of the party were wasted, worthless. We would be admitting that all of the emotions and energy invested in all of those many elections over the years were just wasted time and might even signal that we were foolish or stupid, easily manipulated. Most importantly, we just might lose our existing networks of friends and colleagues that have shared our political beliefs and values over the years. In exchange for what? Now I get to hang with the aging hippies at the health food store? How many average folks would be willing to do that? We have invested too much over the years to change now, to reform our set of beliefs into something different and new. Facing new facts and truths that reveal our vested interests as false or flawed is one of the most difficult things that humans can deal with. So instead they rationalize and overcome their cognitive dissonance and justify the system and their role in it.
Those of us willing to face the hard truth of the deep flaws of our system and the threats to the planet and its inhabitants already possess a great deal of pain and stress due to this knowledge. Further complicating our situation is our compelling desire to share this story with others so that we can build a strong and large enough coalition to acutely address these problems. But the bulk of the population holds these inconvenient vested interests that form a barrier to discourse. The risks that we would be taking in trying to hold these discussions could range from a smirk to a shank. The culture is well known for its gatekeepers.
Indeed the most relevant truth telling relates to the culture of growth that we’ve built, that must be rapidly dismantled if we are to protect the biosphere for human and indeed biological inhabitation in the future. Even climate scientists and activists have been reluctant to lay it all out on the line (see the provocative Sacks piece in Grist.org), that our culture must cease, that growth must end, and that we must somehow, with seven billion people, derive some form of sustainable system soon, or it will emerge naturally after a significant dieoff. This blunt message, as uncomfortable as it surely is, must make it way into the public domain, and soon. Even our leadership seems to lack the insight, courage, or both to express the hard truth about the consumer capitalist culture.
So I would assemble a preliminary theoretical construct as follows:
- Vested interests (from the status quo or dominant social paradigm [DSP] of growth) react to hard facts that these interests find inconvenient or threatening with cognitive dissonance
- The cognitive dissonance is relieved through denial or other form of rationalization
- It is further protected via censorship and threats of sanction toward people and institutions who seek to perpetuate the inconvenient facts
- Those threatened with sanction may engage in self-censorship regarding the inconvenient facts
- The change agent’s silence perpetuates the reality as maintained by the DSP.
This dynamic prevents us seeing the parallel reality of our expiring planet and the futility of our culture. It’s time to step outside of the comfort zone and express yourself for the sake of yourself, your family, and every living thing. And use a little reflection to assess your own vested interests and determine how they cloud a clear view of our difficult circumstances.
Also see:
Fatal Divisions Part I: The faith gap
Fatal Divisions Part II: Elitist charges and spiteful reactions
