For the shareholders to enjoy limited liability in a venture that has potential negative externalities to the society in the form of defaults and its further ramifications, someone has to bear the costs when such externalities do materialise.
In almost all such cases, the society ends up underwriting the limited liability enjoyed by the shareholders through bearing the cost of default through lost jobs, concessions granted by the state, and above all, the haircuts taken by banks, which are in fact potential losses of depositors’/taxpayers’ money.