This was intended to be a wry comment referencing a communist idea that has always tickled my brain. Somehow I had it in my head that Marx said this (probably b

This was intended to be a wry comment referencing a communist idea that has always tickled my brain. Somehow I had it in my head that Marx said this (probably because of another joke-- "why did Karl Marx only drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft"). Checking my facts now, I see it was actually Proudhon, not Marx (although Marx did discuss the idea here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_01_24.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_..., but seems to say it has a self-reference problem, and seems to delight in insulting Proudhon). I think the "from the state" part is an accidental addition either of my own or from whoever explained the "proper tea" joke to me the first time. I just thought it always referenced the extreme philosophy that all property should be communal and therefore private property was theft from everyone, or equivalently from "the state".