If and when

 Proofreading. Tweaking words, really. I come to this sentence:

In the United States, and elsewhere that finance has grown, long-term economic decline develops along with finance if finance creates cost-push pressure and policy reduces the resulting inflation.

Difficult to read. Difficult topic, economics, because you can't just say "foot": you have to say "the foot that's connected at the ankle to the leg". All the concepts have to be laid out tediously.

No problem. Look at simpler concepts:

In the United States and elsewhere, B happens if A happens.

No. Shorter:

B happens if A happens.

Usually, the order is different, in causal sequence, like this:

If A then B

But this is not what I'm trying to say. I want to say

When A then B

or

B happens when A happens.

//

Logically, it seems to me, they are the same, "If A then B" and "When A then B". But when I go back to my tedious phrases instead of capital letters, "when" is the word I want to use.

Why? (And this is the reason for today's post, to consider why "when" is better for me here.)

To understand "B happens if A happens" I have to grab B and keep it in mind, grab A and keep it in mind, and then compare the two, looking for the relationship between A and B that makes the sentence make sense.

But to understand "B happens when A happens" I have to grab them both, but the relationship between them is only pointed out.

When I use "if" I'm saying there is some relation between A and B, but I don't say what that relation is. When I use "when" I simply acknowledge that the relation exists. That satisfies the reader in me. I can still ask "why" B happens when A happens, but that's a separate thought that develops the idea.

Using "B happens if A happens" I can't get out of that thought without wondering "why", and the absence of an answer in that same sentence makes the sentence unsatisfying. I don't want to put the answer in the same sentence because there is enough tedium in that sentence already. And because the purpose of the essay is to emphasize that the relation between A and B exists, not to explain it.

So, I change the word "if" to "when" and that solves my problem.

In the United States, and elsewhere that finance has grown, long-term economic decline develops along with finance when finance creates cost-push pressure and policy reduces the resulting inflation.

//

Good grief! That's a lot of struggle over one word in one sentence.

But yes, if I say this happens if that happens, the sentence feels unfinished. It wants a "because" and an explanation: This happens if that happens because yadda yadda. 

"When" it is, then.