The title tells you everything. The account is overdrawn. The world has been spending capital it didn’t earn, using resources it didn’t create, and running on the momentum of producers who are no longer there. And now the bill comes due.
This chapter has one of the most quoted passages in the entire book, and it comes from the villain. When the bad guy delivers the most memorable line, you know Rand is doing something interesting.
Book: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (35th Anniversary Edition, ISBN: 9781101137192)
If the last chapter was about falling in love with Francisco d’Anconia, this one is about watching Hank Rearden suffer through a party full of people who hate everything he stands for. And it is painful. In a good way.
Chapter 2 of Atlas Shrugged opens with one of the most beautiful passages in the entire novel. And it’s about pouring metal.