Scar from The Lion King.

Mufasa says that the lions keep the system in balance, but the system he’s describing is an absolute monarchy based on male primogeniture, with him and his family at the top. As the main beneficiary of the system, he’s not a reliable source of information.

We see that not only the supposedly ‘bad’ hyenas but also ‘good’ characters like Timon and Pumba are outcasts forced to live off scraps, so clearly the system isn’t benefitting everyone, despite what we hear from Mufasa’s propaganda. We also know that, in fact, lions eat other animals, including the kinds shown bowing down to them at the beginning and end of the film. We never hear from these animals, but logic suggests that they’re bowing as much out of fear as fealty.

Now, granted, Scar’s revolution doesn’t work out too well, given the famine that ensues, but he was at least trying for a more equitable distribution of resources than under Mufasa’s tyrannical reign.