If it wasn’t a good or at least workable answer, the state and corporations would be using it so much

I don’t like expanding the definitions of things like this. People have had a commonplace definition of violence for a long time. One that encompassed throwing Molotov cocktails and doesn’t include more intangible things like poverty or inequality or racism.

Academia doesn’t get to just assert that their broader definition is the real one.

If your only measure is whether something is effective, then state and corporate violence will always be a lot more effective than individual acts of violence. You could even say that individual violence helps the state to commit violence, by providing justification and by removing the moral imperative to avoid violence.

Think you missed an "n't" in "wouldn't" there.