/lit/ - Literature

Are there any books that discuss how it is impossible to know whether or not a political aim will be as effective as you imagine it to be before it is put in place?

For example, aiming for a particular change in the prison system that has never been tried before to reduce repeat offenders but when it is put in place your change is found to have had the opposite effect.

I think a lot could be said on this topic so someone surely has wrote about it, right?