European and North American liberals, who reject the reactionary conservatives' assumptions about the unquestionable merits of ancient authority and religious tradition, have, nonetheless, often found common cause with conservatives in defence of authority, sharing the belief that order, stability and traditional family values are essential for the rule of law and the development of a free but disciplined market order. However, a fundamental chasm endures between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives have no qualms about unlimited government, as expressed, for example, in the doctrine of 'parliamentary sovereignty' in the UK, whereas liberalism has always been a political philosophy which has sought to limit and fragment governmental authority through such devices as the separation of powers and bills of rights. Hierarchy Conservatives like Burke and de Maistre unite in defence of traditional hierarchies. The hereditary principle whether understood as a title to property or status is considered sacrosanct.
Conservatives therefore support monarchy and aristocracy as well as private property rights.
By contrast, liberals reject the universal application of the hereditary principle. They believe in hereditary property rights, but not in hereditary political rights or titles. In much conservative thought hierarchy is considered the natural form of human existence, equality, by contrast, is artificial. Hierarchy is defended because it provides continuity and encourages diversity. Conservatives tended to approve 19th-century Social Darwinist ideas in which existence was seen a struggle for survival of the fittest and hierarchy the natural outcome of this struggle.