Culture Regains Strategic Influence

Using median estimates from three large language models, the article argues that the balance of influence among culture, capital, and state has shifted over history: states peaked in influence around 1900–1970, while culture was dominant in earlier eras and has returned to dominance in the most recent period. The method is notable: Hanson elicits quantitative pairwise influence scores from LLMs and reads the resulting time series as evidence of a real structural change. — If culture now exerts systemic power comparable to or exceeding states and capital, debates about policy, regulation, and political strategy must shift attention from purely institutional or economic levers to cultural norms, media ecosystems, and platform effects.