… is from page 224 of Luigi Zingales’s 2012 book, A Capitalism for the People:
When ethanol producers lobby for a subsidy to ethanol, they are trying to redistribute income in their favor: the benefit to the environment is just a good excuse. They use the social argument to make it appealing. Ideas are very powerful instruments of lobbying, and the most devastating effects of lobbying have occurred when the ideas are most appealing.
See also the great Bruce Yandle.
