> The riots were specifically the work of the "black bloc", a small group of left-anarchists.
The riots was hyperbole, there were not the only ones advocating for anti-globalization. So was Bernie Sanders, Chomsky and many others. There were not tear gassed for it regularly but the ideology was there.
> A situation where capital can freely move to the most favourable jurisdiction but labour cannot is politically unsustainable.
The point was it was traditionally the Koch brothers and the like who advocated "globalization" not anyone calling themselves "the left". So it seems there was a reversal on the topic which I think is interesting.
You mention libertarianism, but that was usually closer aligned to conservatism than "leftism" so to speak.
> In particular, conflating Millian "liberals" with Marxist "socialists" with whoever happens to be running a street demo is a bad idea.
Yes that is the issue. I think both are referred to as "the left". And at some point it is worth pointing out the difference and seeing that from a traditional point there isn't much left left in "the left" (pun intended), which I think is interesting and was trying to find a more detailed analysis of it.
It seems to me there was split around the late 90s where the divisions are more like between "faux-liberalism + corporatism" (this includes Democrats like the Clintons and Obama), "faux-conservatism + corporatism" (Bushes), "conservatist populism" (Trump and company), "traditional left" (Sanders, Chomsky).
The "faux" bit is because the liberalism vs conservatism is a veneer used to attract whatever is deemed popular at the time. Latest Clinton campaign and Obama used identity politics and immigration to sell corporatism. Bush (junior mostly) used religion to sell "conservatism".
Also it is rather interesting that Trump capitalized on a traditional leftist position of anti-globalization (anti-NAFTA, pulling out of TPP, talk about workers etc). He probably saw a void there with Democrats abandoning that ideology and moved in opportunistically to capitalize on it.