It is easy to see why the Olmec, with their intense fusion of political competition and organized spectacle, are nowadays seen as cultural progenitors of later Mesoamerican kingdoms and empires; but there is little evidence that the Olmec themselves ever created an infrastructure for dominating a large population. So far as anyone knows, their rulers did not command a stable military or administrative apparatus that might have allowed them to extend their power throughout a wider hinterland.
