I think that Soddy had it right insofar as he was dealing with a "material" economy with obviously finite limits to growth if we use a "deficit-based" Money based upon claims over material wealth.

But Soddy wrote the quote you use

Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot away with old age and are not consumed in the process of living

before the massive growth in the "immaterial" or "Knowledge" economy.

Intellectual Property does not "rot away" - although it may be superseded, and less valuable, it exists for ever - and therefore entropy does not apply to it.

I believe that the infinite nature of IP is the key factor (coupled with direct global connectivity) changing our Society in ways that we have yet to understand. I do not think Soddy's linear assumptions apply in respect of it, and we must therefore look down the non-linear road, and consider the relevance of Quantum Mechanics.

That is part of what I was trying to get at in this untutored ramble

Knowledge-based Value and Intellectual Property

It follows that I think that the future lies in "Smart Growth" and the better use of the finite resources we have, in  addition to a new take on the financial market infrastructure we use.

Moreover, I think that the release of the use value of IP, as opposed to physical resources that is already generating huge real economic value, and that this is only the beginning.

Bangladesh is a case in point: one of the biggest value generators in Bangladesh, which employs of the order of 250,000 people, apparently, is Grameen Phone.

This is the JV between Yunus' Grameen Bank (which funds the myriad "village phones" and the entrepreneurs who operate them) and the Norwegian Telco, Telenor.

One of the consequences of this knowledge-based generation of value is also, IMHO, the "Death of Inflation", as (infinite) knowledge largely comes to replace (finite) Labour.

The problem is that we continue to allow private Capital to accumulate the fruits of this increasingly smart growth as they have done the fruits of the growth in "material" wealth/ Capital.

IMHO the solution to this is to apply a tax/ levy upon the privilege of private "ownership" of the Commons of Knowledge, in the same way that we should do in respect of the "Commons" of Land, where Henry George got it right, but was airbrushed from economic history.

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