Inspired by this thread, wherein several posters assert, and no one denies, that (natural) diamonds are as expensive as they are because the De Beers companies of South Africa limit the supply and artificially inflate the price. So – can anything be done about that? Obviously, nobody’s going to organize a major grassroots political movement just to lower the price of diamonds, but could there be some other approach?
In my opinion, no. It’s a house of cards, but it’s built on the firmest of foundations. They stand on the stupendous power of fantasy and illusion. They wrap their vastly overpriced rocks in romance, in happiness, in love, and in sex. They drench us in the fabulous myth of diamonds, and millions of people believe it. You’ll never break that. :smack: DeBeers is forever.
There is a built in disincentive, if you try to undercut them then can flood the market and drive you out of business.
I think De Beers cartel weakness is eroding away however as small players chip away at them.
Stockpile several years supply, launch massive ad campaign pointing out what a ripoff diamonds really are, then sell your stock at a loss.
It almost worked in that one Dirk Pitt book, so I know it’s true.
It seems that cheap artificial diamonds which are indistinguishable from natural diamonds would do it fairly well. I guess DeBeers can continue to attempt to peddle a serial number or other identification system, but financial pressure will be difficult to counter. A beautiful flawless diamond with the fire of an actual natural diamond that can be cut creatively without regard for waste- i don’t see the downside.
I’d like to think that manmade diamonds might impact the De Beers racket, but there really doesn’t seem to be anything to fill the void diamonds currently occupy. By that, I mean a status symbol that is associated with being loved and cherished, and is beautiful but impractical. Buying your honey electronics or cars isn’t “forever” like diamonds are perceived to be, and manmade diamonds - despite being just as beautiful and impractical - aren’t worth as much, and therefore aren’t as valued.
Nonetheless, no one organization can control the market forever, and having an intrinsically worthless product certainly doesn’t add stability.
I’d tend to think it’s a matter of education. Currently, diamonds are associated with romance and scarcity, while artifical diamonds are associated with being a cheapass who buys cubic zirconia.
Change the associations.
Educate people about how many people die to mine diamonds. Educate people that manmade diamonds are the exact same thing; in fact the only way to distinguish the two is to impose artificial markings on natural diamonds. Do this long enough, and the demand for natural diamonds will wane.
I doubt it’ll ever disappear forever, but just look at fur. Nowadays it’s just fine to wear fake fur, and few people wear the real stuff, but it is less socially acceptable. A similar phenomenon can take place with diamonds.
I’m wondering - what practical uses could “artificial” diamonds have if they were *really * cheap? It seems to me we could find plenty of uses for them once we work on the technology. So, if transparent carbon crystals were commonly used for eyglasses, laptop screens or kitchen knives, wouldn’t that have an effect on their perceived “ornamental” value?
The De Beers cartel has made a very smart policy of ensuring that anyone who’s in a position to challenge the diamond pipeline gets a piece of the action. So everyone who’s in a position to break the pipeline is benefitting from it and has no motive to break ranks.
Canadian diamond production has gone from nothing to a major supplier, in just a few years-do they market through DeBeers? I would have thought synthetic diamonds (and silicon carbide imitations) would have broken DeBeers by now.
Buy your diamonds from here: http://www.brilliantearth.com
Diamonds, natural and artificial alike, have plenty of industrial use already. Its used in small particle form on cutting and abrasive tools of all kinds; and this kind of tools are not overly expensive, they use small, low grade (wont make nice bling) types of diamonds.
I shouldn´t wonder if artificial diamonds are primary used for this purposes.
I think that it will, eventually. As Ale says, right now it’s generally low grade, not very shiny diamond and diamondlike materials, but the technology is improving. Eventually I suspect that diamond will become a common material used in technology, which should cut down on the status symbol aspect. Polished steel is pretty, but it’s not a status symbol; steel’s too common. When diamond becomes a commonplace, hopefully the same will happen.
Diamond has similar properties to silicon crystal, only better, so there’d be a little revolution in consumer electronics. It’s high refraction means it would find uses in the lenses of various optical instruments… which would all get smaller and/or more powerful. It would probably also replace sapphire as bearing material in precision mechanical movements.
As with videos of baby seals being clubbed, seeing one-armed African children digging for diamonds would be a major turn-off, giving opportunity for artificial and “clean” Canadian diamonds.
Of course, undernourished amputee black children aren’t as cute as baby seals, so it’ll still be an uphill climb.
They ARE DeBeers.
http://www.debeerscanada.com/
De Beers is putting its glommy little fingerprints on Canada, but they by no measure control all, or even most, of Canadian diamond production.
Heh. Didn’t think of that.
Now, if Steve Jobs wanted to put artificial diamonds in iPods, would De Beers be able to stop him? I doubt it. They’re powerful, but they’re not Apple* powerful.
- Plus Intel, Sony, Samsung et al.
Well, De Beers can probably counter that by raising the issue that hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people throughout Africa would lose their livelihoods to a handful of Canadians and a few rooms full of machines. Life’s never as simple as it should be.
They control all diamond production the same way: by having massive stockpiles of diamonds ready to flood the market if one of the so-called ethical diamond companies gets out of line. The general idea is that if you want to sell jewelry type diamonds, De Beers has to allow it. I can’t find a cite right now, but I seem to remember De Beers actually demanding money from other non-De Beers companies that wanted to sell jewelry diamonds.
Of course anything that keeps the demand for diamonds high when De Beers controls the worldwide supply of new diamonds perpetuates the bloodshed, and used diamonds are practically worthless.