Paternalistic conservatism
The term right-wing socialism is a term used by some free-market right-libertarian movements and politicians to describe paternalistic conservatism as they see it supporting paternalism and social solidarity as opposed to individualism, commercialism and "laissez-faire" economics. They argue that paternalist conservatism supports state promoted social hierarchy and allows certain people and groups to hold higher status in such a hierarchy, which is conservative. The term is also used—more commonly, but distinctly—to refer to moderate social democratic forms of socialism when contrasted with Marxism–Leninism and other more radical left-wing alternatives. In "The Communist Manifesto", Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels criticised the "Philosophy of Poverty" by the anarchist writer and theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as representing conservative or bourgeois socialism. Military socialism, guild socialism, agrarian socialism and some forms of Christian socialism are also termed right-wing socialism by various authors.
Right-wing politics
Right-wing politics involves in varying degrees the rejection of some egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming either that social or economic inequality is natural and inevitable or that it is beneficial to society. Right-wing ideologies and movements support social order. The original French right-wing was called "the party of order" and held that France needed a strong political leader to keep order. British conservative scholar R. J. White, who rejects egalitarianism, wrote: "Men are equal before God and the laws, but unequal in all else; hierarchy is the order of nature, and privilege is the reward of honourable service". American conservative Russell Kirk also rejected egalitarianism as imposing sameness, stating: "Men are created different; and a government that ignores this law becomes an unjust government for it sacrifices nobility to mediocrity". Kirk took as one of the "canons" of conservatism the principle that "civilized society requires orders and classes". Right libertarians reject collective or state-imposed equality as undermining reward for personal merit, initiative and enterprise. In their view, it is unjust, limits personal freedom and leads to social uniformity and mediocrity. In the view of philosopher Jason Stanley, the "politics of hierarchy" is one of the hallmarks of fascism, which refers back to a "glorious past" in which members of the rightfully dominant group sat atop the hierarchy, and attempt to recreate this state of being.