Sorry for the late reply, VS.
I would like to claim it as an original work. I may have heard something similar in some form or fashion, but I can’t recall where and I have done some searching. With the books I was reading at the time, it may just have been the conclusion I came up with.
It’s origins come from my undergrad days: I was involved in a debate with a classmate who insisted that the government, if run like a business, could operate efficiently and with a profit. He was enamored with the whole statist-corporatist view of how government and business could collude to make everyone’s life better.