Accuses an interlocutor of motivated reasoning; also says this:

Definitions aren’t used to explain things on their own. They need to be combined with reasoning to explain anything.

Thank you for giving me a chuckle.

Definitions aren't used to explain things on their own. They need to be combined with reasoning to explain anything. What's your definition? Do you have a better one? Ideally one, without any moral judgement baked in.

I didn’t say definitions explain things on their own, though obviously definitions matter for explanation. Analytical labels however are supposed to have explanatory power. That is the entire point of terms like capitalism, socialism, feudalism, fascism, or imperialism. To redefine them in a way as to vacate them of that power is idiotic.

If your definition of imperialism is broad enough to include any external state activity (aid, trade, diplomacy, war, military support, medical missions, infrastructure projects, and so on) then it explains nothing. It just becomes “when a country does something internationally.” That as I already pointed out vacates the term of any meaningful analytical use.

The better definition is the Hobson/Lenin definition: imperialism is a stage of capitalism, specifically monopoly capitalism. It emerges when capital is highly concentrated, finance capital dominates, the export of capital becomes central, and great powers divide the world into spheres of influence in pursuit of markets, resources, cheap labour, and superprofits, subjugating weaker countries militarily, financially, and diplomatically to secure those interests.

That does not bake in moral judgement. It is not “imperialism is when bad countries do bad things.” It is a specific account of advanced capitalism and what it necessitates.

Again with the motivated reasoning. Also, the class structure can be deduced from the definition without explicitly stating it.

No, not “motivated reasoning.” but basic analysis.

The distinction between capitalism and socialism is class power. The distinction between capitalism and feudalism is also class power. Capitalism means bourgeois rule and wage labour. Feudalism means aristocratic/landlord rule and feudal obligation. Socialism means working-class rule and production subordinated to social need rather than private accumulation.

So a definition of capitalism, socialism, feudalism, or “state capitalism” that does not mention class rule is meaningless beyond slogan.

Your definition was:

State-Capitalism: The mode of production where the means of production are owned by the institutions of the state.

The class content absolutely cannot be deduced from that. It is so wide it could apply to a workers’ state, a capitalist state, or even a feudal state with major state-owned productive assets. These are completely different social formations with complete different classes ruling.

Now you conflate imperialism with something that needs victims. My definition doesn't require any definition of victims. You can disagree, but you'd need to supply a definition that is better suited to describe the world.

The problem is not that imperialism needs “victims” as a definitional checkbox. The problem is that imperialism, historically and structurally, entails domination, extraction, subordination, and violence. That is not moralism. That is what imperialism materially is under capitalism.

Your redefinition strips that out and reduces imperialism to generic international activity. Frankly, redefining imperialism in a way that erases the brutality it actually entails should be treated with the same contempt as holocaust denial. Collapsing Cuba sending doctors abroad into the same category as European colonial slaughter in Africa, US-backed coups, sanctions, debt domination, neocolonial extraction, and military occupation.

Insulting me doesn't make your arguments any more coherent.

Not an insult, an observation.

Okay, so were the D-Day landings mperialism, yes or no?