Burke believed that <answer>property</answer> was essential to human life. Because of his conviction that people desire to be ruled and controlled, the division of <answer>property</answer> formed the basis for social structure, helping develop control within a <answer>property</answer>-based hierarchy. He viewed the social changes brought on by <answer>property</answer> as the natural order of events, which should be taking place as the human race progressed. With the division of <answer>property</answer> and the class system, he also believed that it kept the monarch in check to the needs of the classes beneath the monarch. Since <answer>property</answer> largely aligned or defined divisions of social class, class too, was seen as natural—part of a social agreement that the setting of persons into different classes, is the mutual benefit of all subjects. Concern for <answer>property</answer> is not Burke's only influence. As Christopher Hitchens summarises, "If modern conservatism can be held to derive from Burke, it is not just because he appealed to <answer>property</answer> owners in behalf of stability but also because he appealed to an everyday interest in the preservation of the ancestral and the immemorial."
What did Burke think a social hierarchy should be based on?
property