Just some random capitalist virtue signaling. Not really an expression people use.

Seems the implication is socialist sailors are spending someone else’s money on their drink, as opposed to hypothetical capitalist sailors who spend their own money.

This is similar to how the AI companies mostly spending VC’s money buying these accelerators from nVidia.

Sailors from certain former socialist states have a reputation for drunkenness that goes beyond the normally high levels of drunkenness of other sailors.