The terms "right wing" and "left wing" come to us from the eve of France's Revolutionary era, and refer to the gathering of aristocrats aligned with Crown and Church on the right-hand side, and revolutionaries on the left-hand side of the National Assembly under King Louis XVI.

Louis wasn't such a bad guy really, but he was a weak and ineffectual King and did little to rein in the excesses and brutality of the aristocracy, most infamously exemplified by that iconic libertine debaucher, the Marquis de Sade. Hence the King's right-wing supporters were seen as morally corrupt parasites living on the labor of the lower classes and returning only abuse. These sentiments undoubtedly informed early developments in that branch of political philosophy which would come to be known as Socialism.

In the Legislative Assembly of 1791 and National Convention of 1792, the new "right wing" remained conservative, now defending the constitution against the "innovation" of the new "left wing". After King Louis was executed in 1793, constitutional code ushered in a period of nonpartisan seating arrangements, until Napoleon's abdication and the restoration of the monarchy, now constitutional, under King Louis XVIII in 1814.

So what is the defining feature of the right wing? The wealth of its leading members. And since the wealthy have sought since the dawn of history to elevate ther hold on wealth to the status of social institution, "right wing" politics are naturally (socially) conservative politics, at least insofar as social institutions that sustain the gap between the wealthy and the lower classes are concerned.