The term “sustainable development” has only been applied to the countries of Eastern Europe since the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and in many ways it is not applicable to the post-Communist context. Sustainable development implies an increase in the economic standard of living of people in a given country, usually accomplished by growing its stocks of physical and human capital and improving its technology, but done in such a way that the results of development benef…