Mid- and post-industrial revolution Europe had many large companies with many employees. In fact, the British East India Company (founded in the year 1600) was the first company to sell shares of ownership to raise enough capital to buy/build the necessary supplies to do large-scale business (in their case, mostly ship construction).

Of course, modern labor laws were created in response to the horrible human rights abuses committed by business owners against their employees beginning at that time.

The opposition of "big capital" vs "labor" (and hence the philosophy built on that dichotomy that underpins Marxism) didn't really exist prior to these large industrial revolution companies.

Prior to that, small businesses (and banks/lenders) were the bread and butter of economic society.