This is the same for satellites and solar systems. Why do they just orbit in one direction. Also, why do they rotate on their axes in a certain direction?
In: Physics
If you look at them from the south, they spin clockwise. So your question is basically asking why astronomy advanced the most in the northern hemisphere.
Since the sun and all the planets formed from a cloud of gas and dust, they mostly have the same spin as that cloud did originally. The axis of the spin points to a random direction in the sky. By convention we record the direction of the north pole axis and say that objects rotate anticlockwise. We could just as easily choose the direction of the south pole and say that objects rotate clockwise.
Another answer is that our definition of clockwise comes from (northern hemisphere) sundials. In other words the sun is defined to appear to move clockwise across the sky. For the sun to appear to move clockwise, we must be watching it from something that is rotating anticlockwise.
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