04 - Fifty-One Maps, No Territory: A Diagnostic Analysis of Definitional Divergence in the Agentic Economy (2021–2026)

Episode 4: "Fifty-One Maps, No Territory"Everyone says they're building the agentic economy. Nobody agrees on what it is. That's not a metaphor — it's a data point.This episode walks through all fifty-one published definitions of "agentic economy" from January 2021 to March 2026, issued by academic researchers, venture capital firms, central banks, protocol projects, payment networks, standards bodies, and consultancy houses. They don't converge. Not on what counts as an agent, not on what counts as an economy, not on whether the infrastructure exists yet or is still imaginary.We classify the full corpus into five categories and two fault lines, then ask the question most of the field is avoiding: is this normal? Three historical analogs say yes — and no. Electronic commerce (1995–2000), cloud computing (2006–2011), and the sharing economy (2010–2015) all went through definitional chaos. But in every case, the definitions didn't stabilize because researchers agreed. They stabilized because infrastructure got built and forced convergence.We propose four empirical tests — falsifiable, concrete, binary — whose resolution will tell us whether the agentic economy is real or just a vocabulary looking for a referent. As of March 2026, all four remain unpassed.If you've been using the phrase "agentic economy" without asking which one — this is the episode that makes you stop.Links & ResourcesFull paper: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19679860Fifty-One Maps Infographic: https://agenticeconomy.dev/resources/infographicsExplainer video: https://agenticeconomy.dev/resources/videosThe 51-definition corpus: https://agenticeconomy.dev/agentic-economy-definitionsWebsite: https://agenticeconomy.devORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1033-6519