A political outlook that values and supports established institutions and is critical of proposals for radical social change. Conservatism first took shape as an ideology at the time of the French Revolution, when thinkers such as Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790) and Joseph de Maistre (Considerations on France, 1796) denounced the revolutionary changes taking place in France as destructive of much that is valuable in society. Since then, conservatism has chiefly been opposed to liberalism and socialism. Conservatives have a pessimistic view of human nature. They see people as standing in need of discipline and restraint, and are fearful of the consequences when authority is destroyed and individuals are left to their own devices. They respect tradition as embodying the accumulated wisdom of the ages, and are correspondingly sceptical about untested plans and policies put forward by would-be reformers. Conservatives typically favour: constitutional government as a way of preserving authority without concentrating it in the hands of a despot or dictator; an ordered or ranked society in which people know their proper place and defer to those placed above them in the hierarchy; established religion, in order to integrate people into the fabric of society; and the family, the primary source of moral values and the place where responsible citizens are formed. Conservative economic attitudes have varied with time. Originally conservatives tended to support protectionist policies in contrast to the laissez-faire policies advocated by liberals, but in the 20th century they have increasingly turned to the free market as the best means of organizing economic activity. This synthesis of conservative and classical liberal beliefs can be seen especially in the thinking of the New Right. Political parties are rarely wholeheartedly conservative in outlook, but politicians of a conservative disposition can be found in the Christian Democratic parties of Europe, in the US Republican Party, and in the Conservative (Tory) Party in the UK.