From the perspective of a concerned consumer trying to do the right thing, there are plenty of legitimate gripes to be had about the diamond industry: lack of traceability and therefore the general absence of a guarantee that my diamond is doing ‘good’, weakness of the KP, under-invoicing and transfer pricing, enabling corruption, environmental damage, etc (I’ve made my gripes known here). But consumers are extremely powerful, and we are less powerful, not more, when we act on incorrect information. A speed-reader could be occupied for weeks reading one similar-sounding anti-diamond article after another, but there some are global standouts that actually deserve attention … that they should be ignored (I’m aware of the irony).
1. Priceonomics: “Diamonds Are Bullshit”
This is mostly a rehash of the old and boring “diamonds have no intrinsic value, are a bad investment and we only desire them because of De Beers” argument, as if the consumer is mindless (false), diamonds have no desirable qualities (false), and the only value to consider is what I am offered at a pawn shop or on eBay (false). This reasoning is, well, intrinsically “bullshit”, and Jewelry Atelier does a better job than me of responding to this argument and its other claims here. This argument appears to be more frequently-deployed to diamonds than other equally “valuable” goods for some reason. If the writer’s article is to be true, then it is also true for a multitude of other items people widely consider “valuable”. I won’t even bother reacting to the claim that we only demand diamonds because of “A Diamond is Forever”…
2. College Humor: “Why Engagement Rings Are A Scam”
In addition to making nearly all the same claims made by the piece above, my favorite claim made here is that “De Beers has a global monopoly on diamond mining”. Words matter, especially when you have several million views. I remain perplexed about how exactly a company could create and enforce such a monopoly, unless they had somehow confiscated all shovels, pans and sieves in the world. Nevertheless, what they had, was a near-complete monopoly on the supply of rough (very different). It’s also important to note the tense of the verb: had. What they have now is far from it, unless CollegeHumor believes that 22% of global rough production and 37% of sales constitutes a “monopoly”. Being that this piece of trash was published in 2014, it seems that they either do believe so, or started with a conclusion and then lazily hacked together evidence to fit. I lean towards the latter. De Beers also liquidated their stockpile over a decade ago.
3. Jezebel: “A Quarter of All Diamonds In Stores Are Blood Diamonds, and Nobody Can Tell Which Ones They Are”
Jason Miklian created quite a stir when he published his excellent essay, “Rough Cut” in Foreign Policy. After an in-depth investigation in to diamond manufacturing in Surat, India (where over 90% of the world’s diamonds get cut and polished), he boldly concluded that up to 25% of the world’s diamonds are blood diamonds.
Mr. Miklian’s figure has been intensely debated, and there seems to be some confusion between the terms illicit diamonds and blood diamonds. Important nuance of the difference between “up to 25%” (which is a rather large range, but strictly means 0% at the low end, to 25% on the high end)” was therefore manipulatively lost in the headline when Jezebel.com reported that a full “quarter of all diamonds in stores are blood diamonds”: when given a range, they picked the highest end and saw it fit to publish, because it was more headline-worthy. In our tl;dr world, this may be all that most people read.
Moreover, it’s further dishonest to say that a full “quarter of all diamonds in stores” being blood diamonds. By writing “in stores”, we can assume that we’re talking about gem-quality diamonds, and not diamonds in general. While artisanally-mined stones (those most likely to be called “blood diamonds”) represent roughly 15% of world rough production, their share of world gem production is about 4%. However, it would also be dishonest to claim that diamonds mined artisanally are by definition “blood diamonds”, as the tough conditions of which they are mined — and who benefits — vary greatly dependent upon the mine, and when they are extracted. AADM is also ineradicable, and the more proactive approach as advocated by the DDI is most promising. Furthermore, “of all diamonds in stores” seems to lazy assume that all retailers have the same sourcing policies and therefore the same chances of winding up with a blood diamond. This is not the case, and Mr. Miklian himself even suggested to me that I look at Tiffany and Forevermark as viable options.
One could easily call alluvial Marange diamonds “blood diamonds” (or at the very least, less “diamonds doing good”), but those diamonds are not as likely to wind up behind a jewelry counter, as their quality is generally low and they have a noticeable green tint (casting further doubt on the headline “and nobody can tell which ones they are”). For what it’s worth, Ritani, Blue Nile and Brilliant Earth all have explicit an anti-Marange sourcing policy displayed on their respective websites, and trade in green-tinted stones is banned on the polished diamond trading network RapNet. Simply put, these companies understand reputational risk, and have been proactive about publicizing their efforts.
We could easily call many diamonds from the DRC “blood diamonds” (also an excellent article by Mr. Miklian), but of course, while one of the world’s top producers by volume, the quality of stones coming out of the DRC is generally low ($25/ct according to the KP) as well.
4.Green Karat
This business has recently gone defunct, but its literature is forever in my memory, and in that of Archive.org. Consider the following sentences: “Since [man-made diamonds] are in fact real diamonds, there is little remaining reason to endure the stigma now attached to natural diamonds. We feel the time has come to start transitioning those employed in diamond mining to sustainable livelihoods in other industries, while phasing out diamond mining altogether. It simply isn’t needed any more.”
Man-made diamonds certainly sound nice on paper, but are not without their limitations: the difficulty of removing nitrogen from the synthesis process generally results in diamonds of a color in the H-K range (if you don’t believe me, go ahead and look at Pure Grown Diamonds’ inventory yourself), the stones tend to max out at just under a carat, and environmental impact depends on how those HPHT machines get their energy.
I can find every reason in the world for being insensitive about future unemployment in the fossil fuels industry should we immediately transition to renewable energy sources, but to call for replacing all of what many countries, communities and millions of people depend on (some with no other options) with rows of HPHT machines, simply because of fungible “stigma”, is a sophomoric argument at best.
5. Twitter: @WarDiamonds
Diamonds, like Middle East geopolitics, are an issue that I’ve read a lot about, and the more I read and the more complexities I realize, the less pointed I become. Every time I’ve been linked somewhere, like clockwork this toad emerges from beneath his bridge to call me a shill for the diamond industry, including, as he foolishly and tastelessly somehow saw appropriate, on my fiancé’s Facebook page. Frustratingly, I’m still trying to figure out what exactly the point of this person’s argument is. Is it that by paying taxes to the Israeli Government, all business and citizens are complicit in the occupation, and therefore all diamonds cut and polished in Israel are “war diamonds”?
Frankly, I have too many friends that both live in Israel and disagree with their governments’ policies to buy in to this argument. I’ve already spent too much time thinking about this sad person.