The story
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...
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.