Our first effort to establish the basis for a directional history is
thus only partly successful. What we have called the "logic of
modern natural science" is in effect an economic interpretation of
historical change, but one which (unlike its Marxist variant) leads
to capitalism rather than socialism as its final result. The logic of
modern science can explain a great deal about our world: why we
residents of developed democracies are office workers rather than
peasants eking out a living on the land, why we are members of labor unions or professional organizations rather than tribes or
clans, why we obey the authority of a bureaucratic superior rather
than a priest, why we are literate and speak a common national
language.