On lab diamonds, and what the ethical argument leaves out.

I understand why lab diamonds are appealing to someone who is paying attention. You have heard about mining. You have formed an impression, probably from Instagram, possibly from a jeweller who benefits from the impression, that choosing a lab diamond is the conscious choice. The kind choice. The choice a thoughtful person makes.

I am not going to tell you that you are wrong to care. Caring is correct. What I want to do is give you the fuller picture, because the one you have been given is missing a significant portion of the human beings in it.

Lab diamonds were developed for industry. Diamond is the hardest natural material on earth, which makes it extraordinarily useful for cutting, drilling, grinding, and precision manufacturing. Industrial applications needed diamond in volumes that mining could not reliably supply, so scientists developed ways to grow it under controlled conditions.

The technology improved. The stones got larger and cleaner. At a certain point they were gem-quality. And at a certain point, someone looked at the bridal market and saw an opportunity. The material did not change. What changed was the packaging and the story told around it.

That is not a scandal in itself. Technology finds new markets. But it does mean that the claim your jeweller is making, that a lab diamond is the ethical choice, the sustainable choice, the modern and conscious choice, is a marketing position. It is not a settled ethical conclusion. And it omits the most important part of the calculation entirely.

Diamonds are not mined by robots. Behind every natural diamond there are people, and entire towns built around the mines that employ them.

Botswana is the clearest example. When it gained independence in 1966, it was one of the poorest countries in the world. Diamonds changed that. Today, they are roughly eighty percent of everything the country sells to the rest of the world. That's not an exaggeration for effect. That's just what the economy is.

I think often about a teacher named Dimpho Selebe. For seventeen years he taught at a school run by the diamond company, in a small town called Letlhakane. His salary was double what other teachers earned, because the company knew that a well-paid teacher stays, and a school that keeps its teachers is a better school. He bought a farm. He sent his children somewhere good.

Last year, as demand for natural diamonds softened, the mine offered him a buyout. He took it. He is retraining now, to become a tour guide.

Nobody buying a lab diamond is thinking about Dimpho. Why would they? He is thousands of miles away, and the stone in front of them looks exactly the same either way. But he's part of the calculation, even when nobody mentions him. The natural diamond industry has real problems, we're not pretending otherwise. We just think the story is wider than the one you've been handed, and there are people standing inside it.