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".
Conservatism
Major priorities within American conservatism include support for the traditional family, law and order, the right to bear arms. Christian values, anti-communism and a defense of "Western civilization from the challenges of modernist culture and totalitarian governments". Economic conservatives and libertarians favor small government, low taxes, limited regulation and free enterprise. Some social conservatives see traditional social values threatened by secularism, so they support school prayer and oppose abortion and homosexuality. Neoconservatives want to expand American ideals throughout the world and show a strong support for Israel. Paleoconservatives, in opposition to multiculturalism, press for restrictions on immigration. Most U.S. conservatives prefer Republicans over Democrats and most factions favor a strong foreign policy and a strong military. The conservative movement of the 1950s attempted to bring together these divergent strands, stressing the need for unity to prevent the spread of "Godless communism", which Reagan later labeled an "evil empire". During the Reagan administration, conservatives also supported the so-called "Reagan Doctrine" under which the U.S. as part of a Cold War strategy provided military and other support to guerrilla insurgencies that were fighting governments identified as socialist or communist. The Reagan administration also adopted Neoliberalism and trickle-down economics, as well as Reaganomics, which made for economic growth in the 1980s, fueled by trillion dollar deficits.