WHEN Cindy McCain took to the stage at the Republican convention on Sept. 1, she wore an outfit worth an estimated $300,000. When all around us banks fail and ordinary people feel the credit crunch, how appropriate is it for a candidate for the title of first lady, a candidate for a party presenting itself as the voice of ordinary Americans what is more, to strut the stage wearing 3-carat diamonds on her ears?
We know the price of her outfit because the magazine “Vanity Fair” asked its experts to value the outfits worn by Laura Bush and Cindy McCain at the convention. Laura Bush came in at a relatively sedate $4,000 while Cindy McCain came on stage wearing the equivalent of a large suburban house, or as “Vanity Fair” pointed out, a year’s worth of health care for 750 people, back-to-school supplies and clothes for 500 children or 365 round-trip flights from Washington, DC, to Anchorage, Alaska. How could one outfit cost so much? Because Mrs.McCain wore diamonds earrings. Assuming they are real, those earrings are estimated to be worth a whopping $280,000.
In the film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, Marilyn Monroe famously sang that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. More than 50 years later the words of that song are still relevant. Ask women why they hanker after diamonds and the purely materialistic financial security idea of the song comes through. Diamonds are precious, expensive, millions of years old and when a man offers you a diamond ring it is proof of his commitment to you, a sign of financial security and a safeguard for when things go wrong. It is also a social statement. The ring you wear is a symbol to the world at large of how much that man values you financially. Diamonds are also beautiful.
But are 3-carat diamonds really worth paying $280,000? The short answer is no. Diamonds are overvalued. For a start, they are not rare. You’d expect them to be, but they are not. The only reason they cost so much is because De Beers controls the volume of diamonds on the market and consequently the price of diamonds, ensuring continuing price stability.
That would be just about OK if the artificially inflated price was a good investment, but it is not. If in doubt just try selling a diamond ring and notice how much less you will get for it than the price it was bought for. Buying earrings like Mrs.McCain’s might cost you the best part of 300k but selling them second-hand would bring in far less. Diamonds can also be produced in a lab. Synthetic diamonds may not sound as alluring as mined diamonds but the two are identical. They are exactly the same; they have the same physical properties. A synthetic diamond is a real diamond; a jeweler cannot tell the difference between a mined diamond and a synthetic diamond and neither could you or I. Only a sophisticated machine designed specifically for the job can spot the difference.
Synthetic diamonds cost a fraction of the cost of mined diamonds but is the former any the less appealing? Do you think someone like Mrs.McCain would even consider wearing synthetic diamonds? Somehow I doubt it. When Mrs.McCain wears 3-carat diamonds, she is making a pure statement of her social status: She is a rich heiress who can afford to walk around with $280,000 on her earlobes.
Then there are the ethical issues. Some of the blood diamond concerns have been dealt with by the Kimberley process. This requires diamond-exporting nations to seal the diamonds in a tamper-proof container and to accompany each diamond with a document certifying that it was not mined in a war zone. Though this makes it harder for diamonds to be smuggled out of war zones, it does not ensure that this does not happen. Nor does it deal with the often appalling conditions that exist in open diamond mines in countries not classed as war zones. And yet do any of us really think about how the beautiful jewel in its exquisite box came to us?
Perhaps our lust for diamonds is just another example of our willingness to be taken in by clever advertising and to be lured by the powerful current of modern materialism. De Beers has successfully instilled in us the idea that a diamond is forever. Just like many of the products we are willing to pay a small fortune for, their worth lies more in their symbolism than in their real value. And when Mrs.McCain appears at her husband’s side wearing jewels most Americans could not even dream of owning, she is simply reaffirming the immutable reality of social inequality.
