The Spectacular End Of The Diamond Cartel

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The Spectacular End Of The Diamond Cartel Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times,An astonishing collapse is happening right now, one that was easily foreseen five years…

An astonishing collapse is happening right now, one that was easily foreseen five years ago but which still defies belief. The world's longest-running industrial resource cartel has fallen apart due to technological innovation. The resource is diamonds, the company is De Beers, and the reason for the upheaval is lab-created diamonds which are indistinguishable from natural ones to the eye. Only a professional can tell based on imperfections.

TikTok is now running real-time auctions for diamonds. Curious, I looked into how much they are per carat. I had heard that they had fallen to $1,000, which would be a 50-90 percent drop. Actually, as it turns out, you can pick up a real diamond on a TikTok auction for only $100.

You see what's happening here. The diamond is not only losing its economic status. Next comes its cultural status. It will soon become a gemstone like any other. Perhaps there will be a reaction such that new brides will prefer anything but a diamond just to make the point. They will move to emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and aquamarines. They were popular in the 19th century.

Indeed, the diamond as a wedding ring is a 20th century phenomenon, a result of one of the most brilliant marketing campaigns ever. In 1947, copywriter Frances Gerety at N.W. Ayer coined the slogan "A Diamond Is Forever." Diamonds became permanent symbols of love and commitment, discouraging resale, and creating cultural necessity for engagement rings. Supporting ideas like the "two months' salary" guideline further raised average spending.

All of this secured the cartel by the De Beers company of South Africa, which had controlled 90 percent of the world's diamond supply by 1900. The company was taken over by Ernest Oppenheimer in the 1920s. The brilliant strategy was to restrict supply to keep the price as high as possible. They did this for a century, creating one of the mightiest industrial empires on the planet.

Finally, lab-created diamonds came along.

There is an interesting…

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