Dhaka, April 7 -- Power and profit are a dangerous mix. That was true in the age of kings. It remains true in the republics. The old rule of good governance is simple: those who make the rules should not also be in a position to benefit from them.

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) understood this clearly. He is best known as the French thinker who helped shape modern constitutional government, especially the idea that power must be divided so that no single person or institution controls everything. But his deeper concern was even more fundamental: how to stop those in power from turning public office into private advantage.

That is why one of his sharpest warnings was not about courts or elections, but about c...