Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Public opinion is convinced that the North is trying to help the South. Yet François Mitterrand declared in Naples at the G7 Summit in July 1994, “Despite the considerable amounts spent on bilateral and multilateral aid, the flow of
capital from Africa towards the highly industrialised countries is greater than that which flows towards the
developing countries.”

In fact there is a massive transfer of the social surplus created by salaried workers and small producers in the
South towards the ruling classes of industrialised and Third World countries. This chapter begins with a general
overview of the different forms of transfer from the South to the North. Transfers from salaried workers and small
producers in the South towards the capitalists in North and South alike will be included, as will the losses of
potential income in hard currency suffered by the South because of the protectionist policies of the North. Finally,
money sent to the developing countries by migrants and certain aspects of official development aid will be dealt
with ...