Theories of modernization are not scientific hypotheses but theodicies – narratives of providence and redemption – presented in the jargon of social science. The beliefs that dominated the last two decades were residues of the faith in providence that supported classical political economy. Detached from religion and at the same time purged of the doubts that haunted its classical exponents, the belief in the market as a divine ordinance became a secular ideology of universal progress that in the late twentieth century was embraced by international institutions.

[…]

Despite its claim of scientific rationality, neoliberalism is rooted in a teleological interpretation of history as a process with preordained destination, and in this as in other respects it has a close affinity with Marxism.

John Gray: Black Mass. Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia S. 105ff.