Armando Ribas

Armando Ribas, former Argentine deputy, lawyer, professor of political philosophy, economist, business consultant, profound scholar of universal history, essayist, columnist, poet, enjoyed singing boleros, tangos and even opera arias, and always had at hand a maxim to clearly explain contemporary sociopolitical, cultural or economic phenomena. In addition to his political activity, he worked as an economist for the International Monetary Fund.


Armando Ribas graduated as a lawyer from the University of Santo Tomás de Villanueva in Havana, completed a master's degree in Comparative Law at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Texas) and obtained his doctorate in Law from Columbia University.

In 1960 he settled in Argentina. There he taught classes, advised the Minister of Economy and the Department of Agriculture, and between 1983 and 1990 he was a national deputy for the Democratic Center Union party (UCEDE), being the only Cuban to ever serve in the Argentine parliament.

During the second half of the 20th century, Ribas served as an economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and chief economist of the Foundation for Research on Latin American Economics (FIEL). He was a fellow of the Friedrich A. von Hayek Foundation and professor at Francisco Marroquín University (Guatemala) and the School of Economics and Business Administration (Argentina).

Without ever losing his love for Cuba, Ribas fell in love with Argentina. In his poem To Argentina, he laments that the South American country ceased to be one of the world's leading economies (data from the Maddison Project affirm that Argentina ranked first in per capita GDP between 1895 and 1896).

Ribas came to know Argentine history better than many natives. Ribas wrote: "I have dared to say that Argentina is the only country created under an Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-American political-philosophical process, and implemented by descendants of Spaniards. In my view, four men, often at odds with each other, produced what could be considered the miracle of the second half of the 19th century. These four figures were Juan Bautista Alberdi, Justo José de Urquiza, Bartolomé Mitre and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento" (Argentina, a Miracle of History, 2000).

Armando always had an article written explaining the situation of the world and of the country he adopted and loved without reservation. He never stopped dreaming that Argentina would again stand out as the miracle of freedom it was after national organization and the Constitution of 1853. He understood Alberdi in all his dimensions as few did," asserts Argentine lawyer, essayist and journalist José Benegas.

"He explained with profound knowledge the philosophical roots of the liberal line that goes from the Glorious Revolution to the independence of the United States, with its fullest expression in the prolific thought of its Founding Fathers. He insisted again and again on differentiating that tradition from the collective horror of the French Revolution. But he could also analyze economic events with conceptual competence and recognized technical rigor. He was a consistent follower of David Hume. That is why for him there was not one West, there were at least two. He dedicated his last book to that issue, The Fallacy of Western Civilization and an earlier one called Who Is the West?", wrote the author of 10 False Ideas that Favor Despotism. The Dictatorships of the 21st Century in the Minds of Their Victims in Infobea.

He was a defender of the capitalist system. In his book Rule of Law: The Path to Freedom he states: "There exists in history only one system that allows for freedom and the creation of wealth, and that is the liberal system, the rule of law".

His collection of essays The Fallacy of Western Civilization is a critique of Marxist ideas and a resounding synthesis of Ribas's liberal thought, where he argues that the economy "is not an independent science but merely consequential and dependent on ethics, politics and the legal system derived from them".

"His porteño accent could not hide his Cuban nature. He loved Juan Bautista Alberbi as much as Argentina, his second homeland. Cuba, his native land, however, filled him profoundly with a permanent and incomparable space. His condition as an exile he carried well-rooted.

He was a Cuban-Argentine who could never lose his accent of origin, nor his Caribbean grace nor his devotion to music and song. Armando was a preacher, an activist and an exquisite intellectual of freedom, whose preaching through his books and articles he maintained until the end of his days.

He was founder of the Liberty Foundation, a defender of the ideas of freedom on the academic and political level.

Ribas received in 2015 the Rogelio T. Pontón Award, created in memory of the outstanding Argentine economist, creator of the Liberty Foundation, who passed away in 2013. He leaves a voluminous body of work, studied and praised by several generations of liberal intellectuals, composed of thousands of articles and books covering diverse subjects and genres, among which stand out: The Prince and the Little Prince: ethics, freedom and State; Between Freedom and Servitude; Cuba Between Independence and Freedom; Property: Source of Freedom; Banking Crises and Convertibility; The Role of the Entrepreneur in Society, and Monetary Theory, Interest Rates and Inflation, among others.

He was an exceptional human being, of incredible acuity and memory, with a fine Cuban humor that over time he made converge with Argentine humor. For his dedication to research, teaching and the defense of the ideas of freedom, it can be said that Armando Ribas was the most liberal Cuban in the classical sense.