[georgeek]

Almost everything that one would need for daily subsistence is tied to benchmark future contracts: cattle, soy beans, rice, wheat, sugar, coffee are all traded as futures on exchanges. Most coffee in the world is traded against the Coffee C future benchmark for instance: https://www.theice.com/products/15/Coffee-C-Futures

Giving producers and consumers a way to get a standardized contract at a given point ahead in time usually makes the price of the underlying commodity much more stable.

It has been argued that the way our society operates is based on the concept of futures contracts. It all began with the Dutch tulip futures in the 17th century that stabilized flower prices and made them a viable business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

[triangleman]

Don't miss the "Legal Changes" section of that article. The bubble and subsequent bust, it turns out, was caused by government meddling (at the behest of powerful economic interests, mind you).