"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
"You ought to live in California - " began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
"This idea is that we're the Nordics. I am and you are and you are and -" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again, "- and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization-oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"
The man talking is Tom Buchanan.
This is the man that is so wealthy and successful that he has enough money to buy a "string of polo ponies from Lake Forest". This is the man that lives in a "Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay, [with a lawn that] started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile." And men like Tom Buchanan, they are the people that inhabit the wealthiest and most fashionable community in the nation.
What does it say about society when the best among us, as judged by wealth and possessions, are the worst among us, as judged by moral values. Fitzgerald portrays Tom as prosperous, powerful, and successful. But this admirable outward personality is contrasted with a deplorable moral character. Tom cheats on his wife openly, breaks his mistresses nose, and professes the natural superiority of the white race. How can these two opposing personalities be inhabited by the same man? Tom, Daisy, and the rest of East Egg are walking contradictions. Their financial success does not match their moral failure.
Thus it is only rational to come to the conclusion that this combination of characters is not an accident. It is too early in the novel to conclude the correct order of causation, but there is definitely a correlation between financial success and moral failure. Is Fitzgerald trying to send the message that financial success leads to corrupt morals or that corrupt morals are necessary for financial success or both?
