Right-wing politics
In modern times, "right-wing" is sometimes used to describe "laissez-faire" capitalism. In Europe, capitalists formed alliances with the Right during their conflicts with workers after 1848. In France, the Right's support of capitalism can be traced to the late-nineteenth century. The so-called neoliberal Right, popularised by US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, combines support for free markets, privatisation and deregulation with traditional right-wing support for social conformity. Right-wing libertarianism (sometimes known as libertarian conservatism or conservative libertarianism) supports a decentralised economy based on economic freedom and holds property rights, free markets and free trade to be the most important kinds of freedom. Russell Kirk believed that freedom and property rights were interlinked. Anthony Gregory has written that right-wing libertarianism "can refer to any number of varying and at times mutually exclusive political orientations". Gregory holds that the issue is neither right or left, but "whether a person sees the state as a major hazard or just another institution to be reformed and directed toward a political goal".
Right-wing populism
Moore (1996) argues that "populist opposition to the growing power of political, economic, and cultural elites" helped shape "conservative and right-wing movements" since the 1920s. Historical right-wing populist figures in both major parties in the United States have included Thomas E. Watson, Strom Thurmond, Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan. When Conservative Democrats dominated the politics of the Democratic Party, they comprised a faction of the Democrats which espoused populism, while the Republicans have adopted some forms of populism since 1980s.