>Capitalists claim that this is optimal.

It's more optimal than planned economies until we have AI planned economies with realtime feedback, I guess.

Consumers get cheap goods during oversupply and most inefficient companies get elliminated during bust while consolidation leads to economies of scale.

No this is literally a sign of an unstable system with too high of a gain K.

There is an alternative where legislation dampens this behavior but the short term profits will be lower. Hence the hawks don’t like it.

>legislation dampens this behavior

Potentially. Well meaning and thought out legislation still distorts the markets, possibly making things objectively worse.

This is a wild take.

Sophomoric take more precisely.

Why is the opposite of capitalist markets automatically assumed to be a command economy? Co-op style businesses aren't really capitalist orientated but are also not reliant on government action.