Mark Levin’s body of work continues to impress and grow. Aside from his highly popular radio talk show and Life, Liberty, and Levin on Fox News Channel, Levin has been prolific with the printed word. Among his published works, he has racked up eight No. 1 New York Times bestsellers over the years, which might be unrivaled by anyone in the conservative movement over the past quarter century or so. One needs to think of leading conservative intellectuals like William F. Buckley, Jr. for a similar track record.
I make the Buckley comparison quite deliberately. Levin’s weekly TV show, Life, Liberty, & Levin, is a throwback to Buckley’s Firing Line. Each episode weekly offers the audience real depth and expertise, a refreshing break from the usual cable news blather. Moreover, like Buckley, Levin is a major conservative media personality who doesn’t hire ghostwriters to do his books. A true intellectual wouldn’t do that. Buckley didn’t and Levin doesn’t. (WATCH: Paul Kengor discusses Ted Kennedy and the KGB on Life, Liberty, and Levin.)
Also notable regarding Levin’s books is the range. He has written on subjects from liberty to tyranny, the Supreme Court to the Democratic Party, and conservatism to Marxism, among more. I’ve reviewed several of these books here at The American Spectator, including my favorite, American Marxism. (READ: Paul Kengor: “Un-American Marxism” and “The Democratic Party Hates America: The Book Every American Needs.”)
I thought once again of Levin’s range when cracking open his latest work, also likely bound for bestseller status. His topic this time is power. The title: On Power.
Levin-ites right away will recognize that On Power is not his longest book. Far from it. In fact, compared to the bestsellers, it’s probably the shortest. But that’s okay. The book really carries a punch. Yes, a powerful punch (I couldn’t resist the pun).
If you’ve listened to Levin over the years, he frequently points out how liberal Democrats are driven by a lust for power. They’re willing to do anything to keep their damned power, from reading into the Constitution “rights” that don’t exist to desiring everything from packing/expanding the Supreme Court to canceling the Electoral College. As progressives, they claim to do these things in the name of “democracy” or “liberty.” As Levin notes, “History is replete with examples of tyrants grabbing power in the name of liberty.”
What they want is not what the American Founders wanted.
As Levin notes, what was great about this nation’s Founding Fathers is that their power was pursued in the name of genuinely securing liberty. “The American Revolution,” writes Levin, “is an important and obvious example of power properly pursued and exercised.” The framers exercised power in order to promote individual and societal liberty, particularly through the establishment of a system of limited, divided, and representative government. In a word, or two words, as Levin reminds us, they pursued “ordered liberty.”
Those are two words that every modern conservative should know. Russell Kirk used them often. What is so valuable about Levin is that he knows these concepts so well and brings them into this book and all his books. There are many self-identified, self-professing conservatives, but too often they do not know the movement’s history and intellectual foundation. Here again in this work, too, Levin aims to teach them.
The conservative movement was heavily influenced by key names that Levin brings to readers in this book: Madison, Montesquieu, Locke, Tocqueville, leading Austrian economists such as Mises and Bastiat, and even the likes of Lincoln and C. S. Lewis. Their views influenced our Founders’ views and modern conservatism.
Many conservatives are anti-government. But true conservatism is about limited government.
Levin underscores the American Founders’ understanding that government is necessary. It is a necessary evil. As Thomas Jefferson put in the Declaration, “[I]n order to secure these rights” — namely, life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness — “governments are instituted among men.” Levin quotes James Madison’s brilliant Federalist No. 51, in which the father of the Bill of Rights said that because human beings are imperfect and ambitious, a government structure was needed “that safeguards abuses of power. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” In other words, power must be exercised to restrict the abuse of power. Such is the essence of good government. As Madison wrote: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
But alas, men are not angels. Or to borrow from Alexander Hamilton, they are greedy, rapacious, vindictive. And so, ambition must be employed to control ambition. Here again, Levin quotes Madison: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in his: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Such is power used properly. Power is not entirely negative. Levin spends much time laying out in careful detail the differences between negative power and positive power. It’s a very nuanced treatment, and one needs to read the book to appreciate the crucial distinctions.
As Levin describes it, positive power is fundamentally different and comes from an altogether different universe than negative power. Positive power is not man-made but derives from a higher power. It is transcendent.
“There is a universe that is greater than and beyond mankind and government,” writes Levin. “There is an inherent and supreme law that is unamendable by man-made law. Only governments that are established and exist based on this universal order of things are, therefore, valid, legitimate, and right.”
Negative power comes from mankind and seeks to re-engineer God’s children into something that the Creator never intended. America was built on positive power. Its Founders extolled the importance of faith. Our bedrock is one of Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.
Here, Levin quotes George Washington and John Adams.
“It is substantially true,” said Washington, “that virtue or morality is a necessary spring for popular government.” John Adams stated: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
In all, Levin applies this very philosophical, thoughtful treatment to the practical realities of governing today. He warns of today’s politicians and academicians “who claim to embrace and uphold the Constitution while using it, by manipulation and perversion, as a means to dismember its most critical parts, especially separation of powers, the consent of the people, and federalism.”
In particular, Levin warns against progressives who engage in the “glorification and even deification of centralized authority,” whether through the courts, executive power, or the legislature, in a way that is “antithetical to liberty and the sovereignty of the people.” They favor the centralization and exercise of power — negative power — “only when it expands their authority and promotes their governing ideology.” (emphasis original)
Again, this is very much applicable to our times as Americans, whether in 1776 or 2025. Mark Levin’s latest book offers a crucial telltale lesson on power both properly used and abused.