The concept of alienation in philosophical parlance was popularized by some unfaithful disciples of Hegel: Hess, Feuerbach and, especially, Marx. Alienation is a process whereby products of human work and life gain a quasi-autonomous existence and dominate (or oppress) people like foreign powers; people lose control of their own creations. God is alienated humanity, money is the productive effort alienated from the producers. The word ‘alienation’ is often used in a vague sense of being injuriously separated from society or one's own milieu — Professor Leszek Kołakowski