Freud and totem

What is the point of Totem and Taboo other than to stress this, that taboo can't do what it is meant to do if it is to remain as taboo. Taboo excommunicates, but more than that it also renders what is excommunicated prohibited. This second function, this excessive prohibition of what is already exiled, dooms the object to be a sign of the failure of the community or regime that exiled: prohibition is the sign of a failure of a regime to dominate and render commensurable or subordinate everything within its sphere of power. Taboo is nothing other than the mark of the need of a regime for a determination of that which falls within it. Taboo, as excommunication and prohibition, must be failure, must subvert itself and the regime that employs it, to be effective as itself. Nothing is more remote from from a sucessful rendering taboo than a fully achieved excommunication. That is, nothing is further from taboo than successful taboo.