 Nozick recognizes that even in relatively free societies the historical processes that have yielded existing holdings have been shot through with injustices. The history of almost all existing holdings includes lots of appropriation by way of murder, plunder, enslavement, fraudulent dealings, and other illicit coercive transfers (usually on behalf of the rich and powerful). We do not need a delicately worked out theory of rectification in order to say that, if A has grabbed B’s goat yesterday, he can be required to return it to B today. But we do need a highly elaborate theory to inform us about what rectification payments (if any) should now be required of whom on behalf of who else because of injustices performed 20 or 50 or 200 years ago. Presumably any acceptable doctrine will require that only current victims of past injustices have just claims to rectification payments and that they only have just claims against current beneficiaries of those past injustices. Perhaps, then, bygones should be treated as bygones when we lack the information that a well-developed doctrine of rectification would require us to have to justly rectify long past  injustices.[29]