Considering that 'The Magnificent Amerbsons' won the Pulitzer prize back in 1919 it's no surprise that it's a poignant (and pointed) portrait of American life and culture, in this case from the end of the nineteenth into the beginning of the twentieth century. Specifically, this novel chronicles the decay and evolution of an unnamed town in the Midwest as a means of exploring a dramatic shift in the American zeitgeist, for which author Booth Tarkington uses the fall of the carriage and the rise of the automobile as the central symbol.

This was a rather lofty ambition on Mr. Tarkington's part, and so to reign it all in, the plot itself is wrapped around three generations of one family: the titular Ambersons.

The Ambersons are by no means 'old money'--we're told on page one that the family patriarch, Major Amberson, was the first to make real money, and then established them as the proverbial 'Joneses' of the town, hosting the most lavish, exclusive parties, building the biggest estate, having roads named after them--all the staple aristorcratic moves.

The townsfolk seem to like the Ambersons well enough, and indeed neither the major or his two adult children are terribly haughty or look down on their neighbors.

Enter the third generation and our main POV character: George Amberson.

George is both a spoiled and a rotten child and loathed by everyone but his mother, who dotes on him unconditionally (to her eventual detriment). He lords it over his friends and anyone else unlucky enough to cross him that he is an Amberson, whatever their fortune, and they are and always will be 'riffraff', whatever their fortune.

This attitude follows him into young adulthood, and he remains convinced that his family's status is connected to some essentialist quality that makes them inherently and inalienably aristocrats even when the family no longer holds any social power or are even rich.

Not a particularly American viewpoint, right? No 'land of opportunity,' 'build yourself up by your bootstraps' 'meritocracy uber alles' red blooded American would be able to tolerate the notion of an American 'aristocrat' without a mighty scoff. Fortunes and status have to be earned, not bequeathed.
Putting a rather fine point on it, a newspaper runs an article titled 'Gilded Youth of the Fin de siècle' that states this sentiment plainly:

In all the orgy of wastefulness and luxury with which the nineteenth century reaches its close, the gilded youth has been surely the worst symptom. With his airs of young milord [...] his recklessness of money showered upon him by indulgent mothers or doting grandfathers. [...] He is blase if you please. (p.75)

Ouch.

None of this gets to young George. What does he care what some 'riffraff' newspaper says? He's got more important things to do like prepare for a career, surely. Well...

"Don't you think being things is rather better than doing things? [...]" [...] When Lucy rather shyly pressed him for his friend's probable definition of the 'things' it seemed so beautiful and superior to be, George raised his eyebrows slightly, meaning that she should have understood without explanation, but he did explain: "Oh, family and all that--being a gentleman I suppose." Lucy gave the horizon a long look, but offered no comment. (p.119)

Who is Lucy? one might ask. Lucy is the daughter of an up-and-coming automobile engineer. Middle class. Industrious. Doers, and very much not 'be-ers.' She and her father, in other words, represent what America is becoming, and none too slowly despite George's confidence that things like 'motor cars' are as vulgar a fad as the townhouses beginning to encroach on his family's formerly isolated estate.

"The things we think are so solid--they're like smoke," George's mother observes, "and time is like the sky that the smoke disappears into. You know how a wreath of smoke goes up from a chimney, and seems all thick and black and busy against the sky, as if it were going to do such important things and last forever, and you see it getting thinner and thinner--and then, in such a little while, it isn't there at all." (p.85)

What neither she nor George realize is that in this metaphor, they are the smoke.

Indeed, as more and more people are drawn to the town, initially to get in on the development of cars, and the town grows up around them, the Ambersons, who decided not to put their eggs in that basket, get completely cleaned out. One by one they start to lose pieces of their estate. There are no more parties, no more carriages, no more need for them. Unwilling to change with the times, and with only one earner (the grandfather) supporting an entire family, the 'magnificent Ambersons' officially fall on hard times, going from 'leisure class' to 'unemployed' practically overnight while Lucy and her father rise to the top of the new upper class.

There are some other particularities, but that's rather the long and the short of it. A sort of reverse rags to riches tale for modern Americans to read and have a sensible chuckle over.

But Tarkington doesn't go all in on this message. If that were the case, the Amberson estate would have crumbled to the ground (which it does) only to be replaced by shiny skyscrapers, the old cobblestone streets replaced with sleek concrete.

That's not what happens, though.

In an aside typical for novels of the time, Tarkington goes out of his way to say this of the 'new America':

A new spirit of citizenship had already sharply defined itself. [...] They had one supreme theory: that the perfect beauty and happiness of cities and of human life was to be brought about by more factories [...] As the town grew, it grew dirty with an incredible completeness. [...] They boasted of their libraries, of their monuments and statues; and poured soot on them. [...] In truth, the city came to be like the body of a great dirty man [...] Such a god they had indeed made in their own image [...] They did not know they were his helplessly obedient slaves, nor could they ever hope to realize their serfdom (as the first step toward becoming free men) until they should make they strange and hard discovery that matter should serve men's spirit." (pgs. 209-211)

Ouch.

And Tarkington doesn't leave it here; no, no. He goes on to add that this new American devotion to industriousness means that no one person, much less a family, will ever again be in the spotlight for any more time than they're useful, producing something, anything new, pushing forward.

"You're refreshingly out of the smoke here," George's father comments to Lucy.
"Yes, for a while," Lucy laughed. "Until it comes and we have to move out farther."
"No, you'll stay here," he assured her. "It will be somebody else who'll move out farther." (p.215)

Well that's all rather cynical and dreary, isn't it? Are the only two choices 'gilded' and 'factory-hungry'?

While Tarkington doesn't seem to take a strong stance on whether those two choices are a binary, I rather think the novel implies that it's a spectrum, and that the polar ends of that spectrum are each toxic, albeit in different ways. The middle ground, then, ought logically be the place we all as Americans should want to see our culture end up. Even the end of the novel, though not definitive, sees the Capulets and the Montagues make nice.

Tarkington makes a strong case against the concept of inherited wealth that easily slides into scornful decadence, but also cautions against trading one toxic form of gluttony (for idleness) for another (for productivity).

Have we, in the century between the publication of 'The Magnificent Ambersons' and now found the balance? Or are we all still worshipping the 'great dirty man'? The emergance of 'grind culture' and aversion to doing things for fun rather than profit would seem to suggest not.

Well my ole buddy, Booth, maybe next century. Maybe by 2119 we'll learn that 'matter should serve man's spirit.'