I think that compound interest represents a "positive feedback" that renders a deficit-based system inherently unstable.

There are of course interesting biological analogies, for instance, the system of financial capital as a cancer which cannot help destroying the host, and "limitation of liability" as a very good analogy for a "semi-permeable membrane" (allowing value in, but not out) bounding an organism etc etc

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson