What you are describing is an attribute of command-based economies. The typical market-based feedback mechanisms are often non-existent, or dulled - is it economical, is there demand, etc. In USSR everything was produced by state-owned factories, where political leadership would pass down edicts poorly rooted in economic realities and wouldn’t pose questions such as “do we need to make a monster helicopter if 3 smaller helicopter are cheaper to manufacture and operate”.

In some ways today’s China is also guilty of the same kind of folly, hence high speed rail network that isn’t economical to operate so ideological justifications are needed. Or ghost cities. Etc.

Market capitalism has other downsides, such as externalized costs skewing economic calculations, but it’s a different conversation altogether.