The article begins with current research in world literature studies, translation and transculturation and then turns to world literatures that engaged with liberalism, liberalization, and, more recently, neoliberalism. It interrogates the connections between liberalism as open-mindedness, tolerance of diversity, individualism, and equality; liberalization as technological modernization and the opening up of cultures; and neoliberalism as the prioritizing of market over other values. With examples from world-historical literatures from China, Europe, India, Latin America, and the Middle East, it considers engagement with western liberalisms and modernization and some recent conflicts between liberalism and neoliberalism. The article is an exercise in comparative political-economic languages and how we might think about literature’s global circulation under interdependent but uneven conditions of development.