Hezarfenn Hüseyin’s Telhisü’l-Beyan fi Kavanin-i Al-i Osman has traditionally been used for two distinct purposes by historians – as a budget and as a text on governmental organization – that have never been united in a single interpretive framework. The Telhis is a rare specimen of a state budget from the period. Secondly, it gives us valuable information about what exactly the Ottoman state was. These two elements are, from Hezarfenn’s perspective, clearly inseperable. Even the word kavanin, often used in its legal sense by historians, here means something more akin to a formal budget. The Telhis is, in other words, a political economic text. In this talk, I’ll highlight several passages that showcase how economy and politics relate to one another in Hezarfenn’s mind.