Adrián Ravier: 'With Milei, we're heading straight toward single-digit poverty in four years'

In a conversation with La Derecha Diario, Adrián Ravier, economist and current president of La Libertad Avanza in La Pampa, shared his vision regarding the political challenge he has taken on in the province, the economic potential of the region, and the need for a deep transformation in the structure of the State.

Throughout the interview, Ravier addressed the importance of reducing public spending, the strategic opportunities that La Pampa offers to attract investments, and the positive impact of the policies implemented by President Javier Milei in the country. He also highlighted the key role of the cultural battle and the work of Fundación Faro in defending the ideas of liberty.

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The full interview with Adrián Ravier

Ares: I wanted to start by asking you why you decided to join the political challenge, right?

Coming more from an academic field, which perhaps, knowing a bit about your personality, one would think you'd be very far from that side, right?

Ravier: In some way, I like Javier Milei's example, of feeling like an outsider to politics, beyond being the president of the Nation, of feeling outside the caste, and of trying to return to citizens the power that was taken from them, right?, in some way. When he talks about giving back, about lowering taxes and returning money to the taxpayer, or about taking care of every peso that the taxpayer contributes, I feel that we're putting into practice what we say in academia. Well, this role as president of La Libertad Avanza in La Pampa, I think, is an interesting new role to build a space in a place where the province's history is that of a 100% Peronist province, at least from what one can see in the history of provincial governments.

Well, we're going to try to change that history. There is a lot of hope, it's truly remarkable, in many meetings I've had in some towns, even here in the capital, in the city of Santa Rosa, the level of hope among the people, the excitement that many people feel seeing that there is a possibility, and also seeing the contrast, right? All the concern from some media aligned with the provincial government trying to make what we're attempting to build fall apart in some way, and putting up some obstacles in the construction of this party.

Of course, we must not ignore that the party was created some time ago, a couple of years, a bit more, and that we didn't start from scratch. We already have representatives in every town, we have a lot of affiliated people, many people who have submitted their affiliations and are waiting to formalize them. So there is a lot of work done, even if it was like underground, right?

It was something that from the surface you couldn't see the work being done, and now I think we're reaping the rewards of all that, added to the figure of Javier Milei, who in La Pampa is also generating extraordinary things. Yesterday's newspaper reported that structural poverty decreased in La Pampa, and the message I'm giving in the media is that this is happening because of Milei, obviously, not because of Ziliotto, who is the governor of the province. I think the drop in inflation, the drop...

Well, data on the decrease in poverty, the decrease in indigence throughout the country, of course, also have an impact here, and the stabilization plan is successful in that sense. Well, I think there is a lot of support and a lot of hope, and we know that at least of the three deputies that will be up for grabs in October, one will go to La Libertad Avanza, and if we do things right, it could be two as well, and if we can also show that we're a political force that defeated Peronism on its own turf, I think we'd be achieving the first objective.

Ares: Based on that, I wanted to ask you, you already hinted at it a bit, right? But, what political particularities does La Pampa have? One never finds out what's happening, or there usually isn't news from La Pampa in general.

Ravier: Well, I came to live here in 2010, I'm from the city of Buenos Aires, I lived in Hurlingham, in Ramos Mejía, I lived in the capital, and in 2010 I came to live here, and I immediately joined the National University of La Pampa as a tenured professor by competition in Introduction to Economics, in the Economics degree program. Honestly, there was a lot of respect at the university for my ideas, which sometimes is surprising, but I have to say it because, truly, the dean, the rector, the professors, regardless of the fact that we knew we had different opinions, there was always tolerance, there was always respect for the content that the tenured professor proposes, and I really have to thank them, because I hear different things in other universities or in other provinces, and that wasn't the case here. I proposed the creation of an economic observatory, and that allowed me to be featured in many press articles for many years, critically analyzing Kirchnerist economic policy, I proposed creating a diploma in economics in which we had Austrian professors invited to complement other local professors who had a different way of seeing things, and they allowed me to do that as well. Well, I must say in that sense that there was always openness to these things.

Meanwhile, I was also able to get to know the province because there are territorial programs in which we go to the towns, to General Acha, Realicó, Quemú Quemú, Macachín, places where I was able to teach people from many places. So, honestly, from that point of view, La Pampa is a place where people are simple, where people are who they are, and say what they think, and in that sense I think it should be celebrated, but also in the contrast, curiously, people are very afraid to participate in politics in the face of Peronism. They're afraid of being fired from their jobs.

A person who works in Government House, a person who works in the municipality, if they posted, for example, during Macri's time, something in his favor or campaigning, they'd be fired or something. Nowadays, it's the same, if someone dares to say they celebrate that Javier Milei is lowering inflation and posts it on social media, they'll be condemned. So, I'm denouncing that fear these days, in my first immersion in politics, that people shouldn't be afraid, that they should dare, that they should post, that they should say what they think, that they should celebrate every success we're achieving with Javier Milei's government, and many people quietly tell me: "Adrián, thank you for saying it, honestly I don't dare, but I appreciate that someone says it". Well, that's the contrast with what I mentioned before. But well, La Pampa has infinite potential, it's the province that's in the center of the country, it's a province very rich in cereals, oilseeds, hydrocarbons, honey, and I think that if the potential of this province is harnessed, it could be one of the richest provinces in the country, and it could easily have the highest per capita product in the country, because there are very few people in La Pampa, a lot of natural wealth and very few people. So, there can't be poor people here, this is a peaceful province, with security, and that's why it can also be controversial the way we're getting involved. I went out and said: "We're going to apply the chainsaw in La Pampa," and when I go to the media and talk to journalists, they tell me: "Do you really think that in La Pampa, which is an orderly province, we need to apply the chainsaw?"

Yes, I say, because if we apply the chainsaw and lower public spending, we can eliminate gross income taxes, we can eliminate SIRCREB, we can be the most attractive province for companies to come and invest. We have an advantage in location, we're close to Mendoza, close to Buenos Aires, close to Córdoba, close to Bahía Blanca, where the port is. If we think about it, it's a unique strategic location. What needs to be done is to generate the right rules of the game so that this becomes an island in a country that's looking the other way. If we achieve the lowest bureaucracy, the lowest corruption, the lowest tax burden, if we're open and eliminate all provincial limits, which sometimes also exist, which are unconstitutional but there are also barriers, and we eliminate them and are open to receiving people, and we carry out the infrastructure works that a province like this deserves, everything can change.

So, honestly, there is, at least, a liberal space that was missing throughout the history of La Pampa, and it's truly impressive what people say every time they approach the space, because they really dreamed of this, and now it's a reality.

Ares: How did you come to the Austrian School of Economics, being something that's not so mainstream in the academic field?

Now, well, logically with Milei's rise it has a higher level of recognition, but a few years ago it was something only for a few insiders, and that was very far from what was mainstream.

Ravier: Well, in this I'm also very much aligned with Javier Milei, who has in some way condemned the University of Buenos Aires and other institutions for blatantly ignoring the Austrian School of Economics. I studied between 1997 and 2002, a degree that lasted five and a half, six years, and I completed it between 97 and 2002, and I always want to say this because today things have changed a bit at UBA, so it would be unfair for me, being outside UBA, to say things that probably have changed. But in my experience, between 97 and 2002, at UBA you learned a lot of Marx, a lot of Keynes, and a lot of Prebisch.

The figure of Julio Olivera, of Roberto Frenkel, and of many structuralist professors, I don't know, Daniel Heymann, who worked at CEPAL at that time, and others, gave the curriculum its imprint from that perspective. Jorge Schvarzer had a book on industry that we managed to get, with protectionist measures and so on. That was what was taught.

What saved me, I say, was my father, who, having been in UCEDE, received the Libertas magazines from ESEADE. And that Libertas magazine had articles by Mises, by Hayek, by Rothbard, by Israel Kirzner, some work by Milton Friedman from the Chicago School, some ordoliberal authors like Luigi Einaudi, Röpke, Erhard, Jacques Rueff, also some author like James Buchanan, or Gordon Tullock, or Geoffrey Brennan, from the Chicago School, also some article by Ronald Coase, from economic analysis of law, or Law and Economics, Derecho y Economía.

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The full interview with Adrián Ravier

Ares: I wanted to start by asking you why you decided to join the political challenge, right?

Coming more from an academic field, which perhaps, knowing a bit about your personality, one would think you'd be very far from that side, right?

Ares: How did you come to the Austrian School of Economics, being something that's not so mainstream in the academic field?

Now, well, logically with Milei's rise it has a higher level of recognition, but a few years ago it was something only for a few insiders, and that was very far from what was mainstream.

Also work by Douglas North, on the new institutional economics. Well, I, being very young, found those things in my father's library. He himself would ask me: "What did you learn today?"

I always remember, he said: "What did you learn today?" Well, today they taught me that Keynes was the savior of capitalism. And he said: "Come, come with me to the library", and he gave me a book titled Keynes at Harvard, from the Centro de Estudios sobre la Libertad, in which Alberto Benegas Lynch, father and son, participated, and in that book I found out who Keynes was, so I already had a critical view of Keynes while they were teaching me about him.

Meanwhile, I started looking for other books, for example Planning for Freedom, by Ludwig von Mises, where there is an extraordinary chapter titled Profits and Losses, and it explains how free markets work, and that changes the life of any economist in training, because you really start to understand how markets work when behind the equations they taught me at UBA I didn't understand anything, really. I saw a lot of mathematics, I was good at algebra, I was good at mathematical analysis I and II, statistics I and II, I loved econometrics, relating variables, correlations, all kinds of tests, mathematics for economists, modeling, but behind all that it's very hard to find the entrepreneur, those who direct the production processes in an economy in disequilibrium, with a knowledge problem that Hayek laid out very well with the 1945 article The Use of Knowledge in Society.

So I think, and I borrow this from Nicolás Cachanosky, Nicolás always says: we're bilingual, because we were trained with mainstream economics, but in parallel we studied the Austrian School, and I think in that sense it's true. We handle mathematical economics, because we graduated from that faculty, and then he graduated from ORT, from UCA, but we studied mathematical economics on one hand, we studied the Austrian School on the other, and I think that's an essential point in our training. From there on, I really found very important authors in Argentina. I always tell Spaniards: you have a Jesús Huerta de Soto, we have five. We have Alberto Benegas Lynch (son), we have Martín Krause, we have Juan Carlos Cachanosky, unfortunately already deceased, in philosophy there was Gabriel Zanotti, and in law there was Ricardo Manuel Rojas, who has made very significant contributions to legal topics. But the five were outstanding people, and honestly I received very good classes from them, and the friendships I developed, and the networks and so on, made me benefit from all that, and I really value it.

Then I went to Spain to study with Huerta de Soto, but I think I went looking for it. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I wanted to formally learn the other library, and at that age I found that opportunity, taking classes with these teachers, and some others I'm not mentioning. Gustavo Mata y Trejo, for example, for me was extraordinary: we studied Rothbard's book Man, Economy, and State, at that time it hadn't yet been translated into Spanish, and we studied it from cover to cover, systematically, with a level of detail and depth that's not usual, and I really learned a lot, so I'm always grateful. Then the doctorate with Huerta de Soto, and then a stint at the Mises Institute in the United States, where I spent a summer, where I was able to study in more depth, and well, then I started writing books. I returned to Argentina and was able to publish this book The Austrian School from Within, with 20 interviews in each volume, there are 3 volumes, 60 interviews with authors from the Austrian School, also to dispel this idea that the Austrian School is Mises and Hayek. There's much more, and the truth is that when you start to get into it and see that you want a perspective on the theory of the firm, you interview Peter Klein and you learn a lot from the Austrian School's point of view. You want to talk about microfoundations and there's an interview with Stephen Horwitz, you want to talk about banking and there's Lawrence White, you want to talk about macroeconomics and we interviewed Roger Garrison, you want to talk about socialism and there's the doctoral thesis contribution of Jesús Huerta de Soto, and I could go on. You want to talk about anarchism, obviously there's Murray Rothbard, but also Alberto Benegas Lynch (son) talks about self-government, which has some interesting variants to analyze. So I started to get very deeply into the Austrian School, and I think that's what caused a certain friendship with Javier Milei, first by presenting books together at La Rural. I remember the photo, the first photo we have is: Alberto Benegas Lynch, Javier Milei, Juan Sebastián Landoni, who is a professor from Rosario who teaches at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, and me, the four of us presenting our books, invited by Rodolfo Distel and also Unión Editorial. Well, those opportunities were repeated, which I think is where all this starts: in seeing in the Austrian School solutions for an Argentina that needed those ideas.

Ares: Now I wanted to ask you a bit about, precisely, the role of the cultural battle that Fundación Faro has, right? Because we even have examples in the region that economic progress alone isn't enough, that's the case of Chile, and precisely there the authority and the importance of the cultural battle become more relevant than ever. What can you tell us about what you do to, precisely, give people more tools to fight the battle of ideas, right?

Ravier: Yes, well, I think that from everything discussed with Javier Milei, I received, let's say, some invitation to be part of the economic team, and some things that perhaps required me to move to Buenos Aires, and I didn't want to, because I have young children who still live in La Pampa, and I wanted to be here, at least for these years. Based on that, this possibility arose to continue doing what I like to do, which is to teach and spread the principles of liberty: individual liberty, the market economy, the defense of private property, limited government. That's how I was invited to this project led by Agustín Laje to be part of this cultural battle on economic and non-economic issues. And honestly, I'm learning a lot.

Everyone knows Agustín Laje, he's a huge public figure; working alongside him is tremendous, because you see the forcefulness of his statements, the solidity of his reflections, the way he presents them and the following he generates, and on topics in which one isn't an expert. I've always said: I'm an economist, above all else, and I talk about economics. And Agustín is a person who talks about non-economic topics, so his books on globalism, the cultural battle, for me generate learnings that I think are key, and I understand how relevant they can be, because suddenly from the UN a group of people, who weren't elected by anyone, decide on a number of political strategies that are applied in almost every country, almost without asking the citizen if they agree, and the directives that then reach the classroom, to my children, who are being taught a number of foreign principles, foreign to them, to the parents who didn't choose that curriculum, suddenly we realize that a strange agenda is imposed by the national government, by provincial governments, by municipal governments, in all agendas. I don't know, I can give examples, for example with the case of inclusive language.

I mentioned before academic freedom: I can define within the subject I teach, which is Introduction to Economics, the content, the bibliography. But the last time I submitted my syllabus for approval by the updated board of directors, adding new bibliography and changing some topics, because you also receive feedback from students and so on, the board of directors required me, by decision of the university council, to include inclusive language in the syllabus. So I say: well, but I'd prefer to leave it as is, right? If we're talking about students, they must, to pass the subject, pass the first and second midterms.

Well, they change "the students" to "the students and the female students". And I say: but I don't consider this necessary, it seems inefficient to me, because you're also adding words, time that was really studied by Mario Vargas Llosa, right? The Nobel Prize in Literature questioning inclusive language, from the inefficiency of the number of words they're adding, let's say, in this case in the syllabus I'm submitting.

Well, and there was no way, because since the board of directors makes decisions at the rectorate level and they pass down these directives for the whole university, inclusive language becomes a reality. Then, of course, if in the classroom you say: "Good morning everyone," a student raises their hand and says: "But I'm a woman, you're not including me," right? So you have to clarify.

Well, it's just an example, but I really think what Agustín Laje is doing in fighting this battle, which seems a bit innocent and it's not, making explicit all the logical consequences of the measures previous governments have taken, seems to me a key contribution. Well, what you say, Alan, about what happened in Chile, where they've had remarkable success in economic matters, in terms of growth, they've reduced poverty to a single digit. Let's remember that when Javier Milei arrived in Argentina, poverty already in January 2024, let's say, reached 57% of the population. Today we're talking about 31%, I think we're heading straight to a single digit in just four years. At the very least, the figure will be well below half, because he's organizing the macro, because he's lowering inflation, because he's carrying out a successful stabilization plan, which impacts poverty, indigence, which was above 20%, now it's below 10%, I think at 7%. Well, it's a radical change. We can do very well economically, but if culturally people embrace contrary ideas, tomorrow they could easily vote for the return of populism, for non-economic ideas, for ideas and convictions that, as I said before, come from outside, and society ends up embracing its own misfortune, right? So starting to put forward, with a lot of respect and tolerance, the ideas we believe in, I think makes the difference.

I think we have to put them on the table, we have to discuss them, and if people don't like them, we have to explain why and start talking and conversing to reach the last corner of Argentina. I think what Fundación Faro is doing is very important. We have a lot of openness in the media, we're very well received, we're asked for interviews all the time to bring these things to the table and discuss them, and I think Javier Milei's effort on social media has been of enormous relevance, added to the work of Agustín Laje, added to the work of Axel Kaiser, added to everything that's being caused, because at Faro we have guests like Alberto Benegas Lynch (son) or Martín Krause himself and other professors. They really make a difference. There are many people approaching the courses, and well, we're fighting the battle. How far we'll go and how far we can penetrate society to culturally change this country, and that in the future people continue voting for the ideas of liberty, I don't know what the result will be, but clearly it will be the difference between a free Argentina or a repressed Argentina, like the one we had until December 23.

Ares: To finish, I wanted to ask you: since you know Milei personally, what can you highlight, precisely from the personal human side he has and from the political side?

Ravier: Well, I think I've said this several times. I see in Javier Milei four key points. The first is that he's standing on the shoulders of giants, of the Austrian School, but also of the Chicago School, also of the new classical macroeconomics, also of other authors like those from the Public Choice School. He knows very well the models of economic growth, he knows very well how important economic openness is, labor flexibility, a sound currency, the importance of eliminating bureaucracy, and he's also finding ways to carry it out.

I think the first point is the theoretical one. He has good ideas taken from the great teachers who trained us. Secondly, I think it's very important that he was a consultant, because he knows how to add hard data to the liberal narrative he learned from those authors.

So, when he goes on television and debates with an opponent, whether a union leader, a politician, a pseudo-businessman, he knows how to counter with data what he's hearing. The data invalidate the theoretical opponent of the moment. So I think that combination of theory and practice is key.

Third, Milei is a teacher. He's been a teacher for many years in many places, and this means he has the pedagogy to teach the listener a concept at any time. If we're talking about inflation, everyone assumes we already know what inflation is. He pauses, quotes Mises, and explains that inflation is such and such.

Or he quotes Milton Friedman, and I think people already recite this by heart: that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. And this fights against many other concepts, but that pedagogy of stopping the situation, making a theoretical pause to launch a concept and build from there, that's what a teacher does. So he has good economic theory, he has the indicators, and he has teaching, he has pedagogy.

And to that add the charismatic Javier Milei, who is a person who on social media has an impact that really can't be explained except by charisma, right? I always say that we used to go to the same Rural to present books, to the Book Fair, for many years, and we always had the same, from 50 to 100 participants, the same people who had graduated from ESEADE or Universidad del CEMA, the same professors, the same relatives, the situation was repetitive, and really this was something Javier understood. He said: we're going to leave this core and start expressing these ideas to all of Argentina in a massive way.

Well, he did it his way, he did it with his language, he did it by shocking social media, shocking the media, banging on the table, flipping the board, and I think he had a resounding success that's what allows today the ideas of the Austrian School to govern in Argentina, which really deserves recognition, because it seemed unfeasible, right? I always remember in one of the interviews I mentioned today that Mises told —this is told by Israel Kirzner in the interview— that Mises, when he died in 1973, was very sad because all his ideas were ignored. He died seeing the oil crisis, seeing stagflation, seeing a world immersed in Keynes's ideas, and he felt he had failed. When Israel Kirzner says to him: "Can you be my doctoral thesis advisor?" Mises says: "Look, I have no problem, but you'd better look for someone accepted by academia, because you'll ruin your life with me."

Israel Kirzner says he liked that humility of Mises, and said: let me continue with you, because I think I'll learn a lot from you. And the truth is that Israel Kirzner is grateful, because he had a remarkable career at New York University, published many books, many academic articles, was able to put the entrepreneur at the center of the economic scene. I still don't understand why he hasn't been awarded the Nobel Prize, every year when the date comes I post it on social media: Israel Kirzner should be Nobel Prize in Economics. It would be a bomb for neoclassical economic theory to put the entrepreneur at the center of the scene, because it breaks any model. Well, returning to Javier Milei, I think that if Mises had seen him, he'd be delighted with what's happening. He'd be thrilled to see the impact of the ideas of the Austrian School, the fact that people already know what we're talking about when we say Human Action, or The Impossibility of Economic Calculation in Socialism, or The Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. I think these are theories that people are already starting to handle, to know, and Milei did a lot to make this happen. So I think what's happening is tremendous, and not only because of what we'll see between 2023 and 2027 in Argentina, with a stabilization program or with less bureaucracy and less corruption, and with other issues that could be highlighted, but —let's say eight years go by and he manages to be reelected— and Argentina lowers poverty to a single digit, and that will be important.